God Is Dead And We're Alone

I was supposed to write this blog post earlier but I was busy googling “thin, grey, short hair” images and this close to reaching out for help after experiencing overwhelming urges to recreate the photos I had found with the kitchen scissors.  Yes, I contemplated cutting bangs. No, this is not the first time this has happened. Luckily, some divine magic prevented me from doing it. Instead I brushed my hair, put on mascara and penciled in my eyebrows. CRISIS AVERTED. But what is this weird obsession we have with our appearance dictating how we feel? I know all the stuff about the media and systems that were created and continue to be upheld that tell us we’re ugly, fat, old and need to diet, cut our hair, learn how to contour and of course BUY ALL THE THINGS that facilitate that. I’m talking about the root of it. Clearly these aren’t completely artificial thoughts planted in our brains by TV and Perez Hilton. This has got to be, on some level, human nature. Shitty ass capitalis...

I don't know if you've noticed, but there is a decided lack of positive stories about the female mid-life crisis in popular culture.  Thelma and Louise is one of my favourites out of the few and after watching it again recently, I feel disturbed. I mean, it's all you want in a midlife crisis story; sex, intrigue, revenge murder of your rapist (we all have one!) and good old fashioned blowin up stuff. That is, until they kill themselves. *wide eyed emoji* Really the only other story we are presented with are the ones where middle-aged women leave their high paced careers/wild lifestyles for what's "really important", like marriages and babies (barf).  So, let me get this straight; I should have a baby...or drive off a cliff? Don't worry, neither option is appealing to me. In a way, I've chosen a harder one. The one where there is no solution. I just have to get up, face myself and my disappointments/emotions/failures and walk through the day. ...

I would like to address something. This blog is written from a considerably privileged perspective. I am a white, (mostly) able-bodied, cis-gendered, queer/straight-passing woman from a two-parent household. (She/her). Got it? Good. I also have enough ability to hold a job that pays me to live, and enjoy some finer things in life. One of those finer things is therapy. I may come from a loving family, but I also come from some intense physical and emotional trauma. In my early thirties, I was finally able to seek (and afford) professional help. I worked hard, did my exercises, and for the most part was able to overcome many obstacles that had stood in my way in life due to the past I was carrying in my heart, body and bones. I was able to perform many activities and adopt a diet that helped me stay off pharmaceutical medication.  It’s only been recently that I have returned to therapy and also considered the fact that perhaps I could benefit from some of those much-maligned d...

If you’re at least 40ish..(I can’t imagine why you’d be reading about my mid-life crisis, if you weren’t ...but welcome?) then as a child you probably watched one, if not all, of the Superman movies.  I had an older brother, so I definitely did. More than once. I wasn’t much for action/comic book movies and I’m still not, but I’ve always been a consumer of the human condition. This means that I remember certain parts of movies that affected me emotionally. A scene that has stuck with me my whole life, and still pains me to think about, is in Superman II. Our hero had just given up his powers to live a normal civilian life (and to make sweet sweet love to Lois Lane in that silver space-y waterbed) and he enters a diner with his lover to enjoy a post-coital burger and fries. Well, quicker than you can say “I’ll have the Kryptonite Martini shaken not stirred”, some slimeball dude starts macking on his girl. To protect his or her honour (one can never tell with patriarchy) his m...