Redefining My Value

Clarity is a great thing. The entire first year after we moved out of the Morehouse, I was stalled in a fog bank. It lifted slowly at first. I actually took a couple of jobs. Strange but true. I still had my value as a woman linked to having a career. George was so valiant. He kept telling me that I could work or not work, but I should only do what I wanted to do. This despite the fact that we were living hand-to-mouth while he tried to find a new business to support us. He had another good line early on when I was really mopey and feeling worthless and ranting that I should be doing something, something of service to the world. He replied, "You could be of service to me. You could be happy, that would be a service." Bookmark that.

So I actually worked in my profession - human resources - for a few months. My mother was so happy. Our lives became more ordinary by the day. I quit after 5 months. Then I started working as a sales representative for a recycled printer cartridge company because I discovered that I had some innate capacity for the first part of the sales cycle - getting the meeting. It also promised a telecommute situation after a few months. I did that for 6 months. All the while, I was searching for the thing I was suppose to be doing, and our lives were becoming still more ordinary by the day. A week after I decided to quit, I had my 42 birthday. All day long I was singing, "It's my perfect birthday . . ." And you know what? It was. The whole day was a dream. I had a crystal clear experience all day of creating out of nothing but desire to have the present moment be the best ever. Out of that came a yummy breakfast, beautiful jewelry and scarves, a bike ride to a hilltop that yielded phenomenal views of the Bay area; and later, cocktails and dancing at the Top of the Mark while watching the sunset over the Bay Bridge. That was the beginning of the shift. A couple weeks later, I was in a Starbucks on my way to a spa, when that woman asked me that fateful question.

When I realized she couldn't hear the phrase "kept woman". I began playing with the language and observing the reactions. It soon dawned on me that I had a life that most women considered a fantasy. They would always trot out an assumption that would have me fit their pictures and validate their existence. Invariably, though, I would crack their reality by responding with definitive delight the antithesis to the pictures they tried to lay on me. It occurred to me that just by showing up and telling the truth about my life that I was giving women another possibility. Unfortunately, the kept woman is rare enough that it represents a breakthrough in lifestyle for most women.

These experiences really helped me get clear that my life as a gratified woman and sensual researcher with George had value. Taking the Women's Intuition course at BPI pretty much cemented it. I discarded so much stuff that was not mine about how my life should be. Now, I can make distinctions about what's my energy in terms of thoughts and feelings, and what is that of other people covertly trying to control me. Clearly, an important skill to have when living a revolutionary life.