Digressions aside, we were having this chat. Luis was telling me about the trials and tribulations of the trucking industry and how in particular the independent trucker just gets no respect. He recounted how one of the drivers went into the port, spent the entire day in line to pick up a container and at the end of said endless day was turned away with nothing. This is not a new story, it happens every day but sometimes he just needs to vent. There are many players involved: steam ship lines, the ports themselves, unions, China, Covid, politics and I am not here to untangle that Gordian Knot for this story. My takeaway is my husband's sense of powerlessness in the equation and how the trucker is the last one to receive consideration. So I said, "Oh I've been thinking of this balance of power thing a lot but in terms of a woman who chose to forego working in the marketplace as a valuable commodity in order to exclusively raise children and do all the things that are neccessary within a household to make it run smoothly and economically. You, as a trucking company have no......ARGH what is that word again? You know, it means power, a valued commodity in an accepted marketplace, 'hand' if you're quoting George Costanza. I can't think of the word again. But you don't have it."
Later I texted my phone-a-friend siblings. Particularly I wanted to ask my sister Wendy what was the word that I had forgotten when she was visiting me. Apparently I have so little of it I can never remember the word, this is the fifth time I've tried to recapture it. I described what I meant and while I was waiting for Wendy to respond, my ever helpful brother Tommy guessed "Truckulescence?!" Yes! What a fantastic made up word. That is exactly what Luis and I, in different contexts, lack in this world. Later, Wendy texted back "agency." Yes that is the word I was looking for before I met truckulescence. The reason I was trying so furiously to remember the word was because I was having an inner debate/ presentation/ argument/brawl about whether it would be possible to enter a marketplace in a meaningful way at the age of 53 when my last gainful employment was as a waitress on the other side of the country while I was in college. Why was I even having this inner struggle? There are number of factors that speak to my constant disquisition: I was raised in a home where it was considered my rightful and correct place as a woman to, if I married, have many babies and raise them and take care of the home. Simultaneously I was pretty smart and a pretty good athlete and was expected to excel at all things in "the world" until such a time that I would be expected to retreat into the submissive enclave of being a wife and mother. This is embarrassing to write and impossible to convey because it is the speak of near cult-like unbending dogma. Still, as it applied to me, I was fully on board with the idea of devoting my energy to raising my children and making my household a thriving operation.
But entering into a contract with another human being where you relinquish all your worldly power is a very delicate interaction and you better trust the hell out of your partner. One time when I was 17, my mother and father got into an argument. Dowd fight caveat, this is a nasty frenzied escalating duel of coming up with the cruelest thing you can imagine saying to the other person and then saying it. So when my father told my mother "You don't contribute one iota to the value of this family" it was probably par for a vicious fight and perhaps he really didn't mean it. But I couldn't stand it. I told my mom " I will never get married, definitely never leave myself vulnerable to the person who is supposed to love me most telling me I have no value." I am not going to list the things that made my mother valuable because its insulting to even have to delineate how and why she was of value but needless to say, she was of paramount value in my life. The pulling out of the rug beneath her feet, to me, was unbearable. My mother made my father apologize to her in front of me and then to me for making me think that the marriage relationship was untenable. But I never forgot the hurt of that on her behalf but also on my own behalf if I was ever going to enter into a similar power contract.
Fast forward thirty years I and five of my sisters all entered into a version of this contract. For a variety of reasons four of my sisters have had to re enter the marketplace as an earner in her household, if not the sole earner in her household. As I stand witness to each of their lives, I am in awe. Abigail was already the primary earner and then became the sole parent when she was widowed. She just marched on with the stubborn determination and particular brand of grace that is Abigail. Jessica, finally escaping a toxic husband, had to restart her career after a ten year hiatus. But she reinvented herself and is a thriving businesswoman, crushing the doubts and hurdling obstacles like Gal Gadot in Wonder Wonan ( first one because boy was 1984 terrible). Wendy has more recently had to examine her options. After raising her four boys, including homeschooling which I think deserves some kind of battle prize, she was rewarded with unfaithfulness right in her face. She chose to not accept the new terms and moved on from the original contract. But after 25 years off the market, it is a seemingly insurmountable slog to find a way to support yourself and the children impacted by this sea change. She has humbly taken on several jobs as the lowest man on the ladder and recently started to work as part of a flight crew for an airline. She's actually killing it, newly energized and starting an exciting adventure at the age of 56. Somehow she was able to find a new version of the old Wendy, my erstwhile pre-teen hero. I am amazed by each of these women, for their resilience, for their bravery, for their ability to overcome what I consider a breach of contract. For taking back their agency. I still have none.
To be fair, I completely do in the context of my relationship with my husband. Never once has he given me to believe that I haven't been pulling my share of the weight. But I always have creeping doubts, a mental spreadsheet of the value of cooking, cleaning, gardening. Ick I don't even like to type out the various things I do all day because I feel like I'm answering that jackass who asks "What do you do all day?" 'None of your business what do YOU do all day?" Especially now that the children are grown I have no excuse for not trying to find a job but the only thing I am currently qualified to do would probably only make our income just enough to cause us to pay more taxes. And so the internal tumult goes on until I silence it with self justifications according to my own scale of importance and value. So, indeed I am so lucky that my only judge is me, my only boss is me because once I shut me up, I have no one to answer to.
I think my daughters would like to be full time mothers if they ever have children but I always try to encourage them to seek a gainful employment that they can hold on to, possibly pause but keep a hand in while they are in the trenches of mothering. Why? Because of what I've seen in my sisters' life, even my mothers' life. It is such a precarious situation to put oneself in. I think my husband is a unicorn. Why was he willing to enter into this contract and abide by it faithfully all these years? Why did he not take advantage of my loss of agency? I think part of it is he understands the loss of agency. When he was 22, the medical school he was attending was shut down for political reasons, leaving him with no record of the past three years of education. He packed his bags and moved to the United States and started all over again. In moving he lost a comfortable place in society, had to start undergraduate school all over, loss of comfortable home, loss of familial and societal support. In other words, he relinquished all his agency and started over from scratch. Having thought he would be on his way to being a surgeon, he started again as a gas station attendant and never thought it beneath him. When he arrived here he was frequently considered a second class citizen for the first time in his life. He was undeterred by the experience, comfortable in the knowledge of who he was. For the years I have spent with him he was been wildly even-keeled in the light of my emotionality but also in the face of a lot of shit he's been given. And you know what? He is never the sum of the shit that someone tries to shovel at him. That is not me, he says and moves on. I do admire him. He relinquished his agency and yet is so truckulescent.
In light of Easter I know another Who is also familiar with the relinquishing of agency.
Here is the description :
"Who Being in very nature God. did not consider equality with God something to be used to His own advantage: rather He made Himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. and being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient unto death- even death on the cross."
This is amazing to contemplate especially as I barter and trade for every piece of emotional value I can give myself.
And even so, He calls to me
"Meghan, come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your soul. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light."
Now this is a contract I can enter into gladly and full of trust. And suddenly in this, I have agency again. I can quiet my inner brawl because I am full of truckulescence, thanks to Jesus. And my Sugarboo.
No comments:
Post a Comment