On Being Woman

Although I had a few options on how I would spend New Year's Eve, I chose an all women pajama party at a friend's home. We are all n our seventies. Our partners for life have left this incarnation. We meet, most times, every Thursday for dinner at a local restaurant.

I could have spent the evening on the river, having brought my pot luck dish, watched the fireworks, sat by the yule log,  and interacted with a happy crowd of folk as they became totally inebriated.  I cannot say I did not enjoy those good old days. However, that no longer appealed to my sense of what this year and the upcoming year are  - except for the fireworks and the yule log.

I could have spent the weekend in a retreat of new beginnings with a sangha in Tampa. I am sure I would have experienced it as most meaningful. However, even though I would have been in a community of like minds, I knew none of them really well and would have had to travel a long distance and find a place to stay.

For the first time since I was younger, dressed to the nines,  and could dance all night while  sipping my share of champagne (about twenty years ago), I noticed I was having an amazing evening. I felt comfortable being me,  a woman alone, sharing an important celebration with others I know. We had no pressure to be other than women, dressed comfortably, sharing our lives, noshing on gourmet finger foods and sipping wine.

Later on at home, I crawled into bed, reflecting on how happy I was at that moment. As I settled into full relaxation, I reflected on the many New Year's Eves I had lived. Women who had pioneered the value, purpose and rights of the gifts of being woman, wove in and out of my conscious awareness. Their determination to move toward equality in society included much suffering.

 I was grateful for their pioneering determination. I was grateful for the wounding I suffered in being in the workplace and being me in a marriage with traditional  expectations during the radical entrance of  feminine energy into the mainstream during my  lifetime. I was grateful that this New Year's Eve was possible as bells of a new beginnings ring out for humankind.

Aging has its graces. Have you been happy lately just being who you are? Are you determined to be your natural compassionate self in response to the suffering in the world of which none of us can avoid being aware?