A woman’s life matters when she says it matters and not a moment sooner.
Recently, I had the pleasure of taking myself, and a friend, out for a night of theatre. The play we attended was written by a woman who comes from a lineage of long-living women and is about three women in particular, 105 years and older, who are residing in a home for seniors. There are many tender moments in the comedic vignettes on stage. We laughed out loud. But I couldn’t help but read the psychology of the three women as the tragedy of one woman — the play demonstrated beautifully the creations of womankind when she knows not that her life matters.
Woman #1 on stage is angry. She was forced to retire based on age. She wants to die. But she’s been blessed with good genes. And her efforts to end her life are to no avail.
Woman #2 on stage is obsessed with men. She depends on the male gaze to see herself as worthy, to know herself as attractive, and claim her being in sensuality. She definitely wants to keep on living but on the condition that there are men who find her lovable.
Woman #3 on stage has retreated into a condition we call dementia but her passion is aroused by ice cream and she frequently bursts out in song as some part of her remembers the playlist of her life.
Do you see the psychic map?
The title of the play is Super Seniors, which hints at the potential inherent in its text.
The world doesn’t owe womankind a living. We are here to make our own lives. Retirement is just an idea that doesn’t apply to a woman’s vocation.
Learning to love the self is a life-long adventure of realizing every relationship is a mirror reflecting back to us what is still unloved.
Life can be hard. There’s no denying this fact. And we can try to retreat into the fantasy of ourselves to seek solace but there is an irrepressible life force wanting to express as us, through us, for life and we can either collude with it or against it to give ourselves the experience of living. Either way, we are here because we are necessary for life. And life is long!
A woman needs her work in the world. A lover’s passion will not be extinguished easily. A singer must let the song be sung. And who the heck doesn’t love ice cream? The task is to not lose ourselves to its consumption.
Most of what we attribute to aging is simply accumulated self-denial in relationship to our life’s purpose and our sense of worthiness. For when a woman truly lives for love of self, she claims that her life matters. And for me, this is the pulse of the play.
Fantasy and necessity may readily be called the two mothers,
heavenly and earthly, of human development.
Emma Jung
Magdalen Bowyer
Contact Me
