Photo by Xiaolong Wong on Unsplash
I’ve just spent the last twenty minutes looking at images of fruit.
I’m a woman who knows how to use her time well.
I was googling fruit because I decided that this blog post was called “Unpeeling”, and so obviously I needed fruit images. Then I came to the conclusion that well-photographed fruit is sexy.
Don’t believe me?
Google “peeled fruit”.
When you need a cold shower after your little Google k-hole, don’t @ me because you feel like a perv, m’kay? Fleshy fruit is sexy, and you know it.
So, I am unpeeling. And despite your assumption that what I mean is “unraveling” (see discussion of sexy fruit above), I assure you, I am sane and doing great. I mean it.
This is not the rambling of a woman bottling it all up, balling her fists, barely breathing and saying “Great” when someone asks me how I am.
I am legit doing great.
I’ve worked my way through seasons 1, 2 & 3 of Succession, just in time for season 4 to launch, so tell me how I’m NOT doing great. I am essentially Shiv waiting for Tom to go to jail levels of great (IYKYK).
I am however in the process of shedding almost everything I think I was before, and I am relearning how to walk about the world with a completely new paradigm. I am presently a life idiot, but also have figured it all out so…
For example, now that I am separated I am relating to some people in my life in new ways.
I find that some women fear me when they see me.
Their looks say:
“Don’t make me look at my own life by talking about how yours has changed”
OR
“STAY AWAY from my husband”
I mean, ladies, have you seen YOUR husband? We’re good.
OR
They want to know EVERYTHING about my separation and my new life.
They say:
“Validate my shitty marriage for me so I can get out too”
OR
“Validate that I am in a good one because I don’t know anymore”
OR
“Tell me what sex is like…”
My marriage had nothing to do with anyone outside of it, and my subsequent divorce also has nothing to do with anyone else, but what I am experiencing is that I have become a human mirror for married people (good, bad, ugly).
Women (and some men) are gazing into me as they try to figure out what their next move is / isn’t.
It’s kind of weird being a mirror that has an awareness that it is a mirror. We’re all mirrors for one another, sure, but me, I know EXACTLY what you’re looking at.
I’m sure it’s not unique to me, but rather unique to the experience of women ending their marriages. It’s only natural that people look at you when you’ve made a big change and think - “well, what does this mean for me?!”
I definitely leaned in and stared at some of the women who walked the path before I made my decision.
To all of the women who allowed me to look at you like the Evil Queen in her magic mirror, thank you. You helped me more than you’ll ever know. You allowed me to see that there was another possibility, and honestly, you made it look great. My only hope is that there are some women looking at me that way and thinking, “It’ll be OK”, no matter what they choose.
The funny thing is, my life is pretty norm-core.
Way less dramatic than ever before.
I bought a new lipstick, so I am looking great. I mean the lipstick is really doing it’s job. It was expensive - I don’t like to name drop, but it’s YSL and it’s a perfect red for my complexion. The woman at Sephora handed it to me and with a knowing smile said “Right?????”, when I put it on. I’m becoming a woman that wears lipstick when I go out.
I’ve also decided that I’m never getting Botox. Not even if my mom hints that I should. Not even if one of my gorgeous friends gets it, and looks even more gorgeous the next day.
I decided this because I went to a dermatologist whose face was so fucked up from all of the injectables she used that she looked like a Cabbage Patch Kid who was murdered, and then drowned, and washed up on the shore bloated with river water. I couldn’t pay attention to anything she was saying about my skin because I was actively resisting the urge to mush my pointer finger into her cheek to see what it felt like underneath. I *think* I’m OK dermatologically, however my brain is broken from trying to understand how her face looks better now than it would with wrinkles.
Oh yeah, and I went to a dermatologist because apparently that’s something women my age do in order to take care of their health.
Hold your applause.
Im taking care of my health. I’ve been on a mad dash to get to the bottom of every ache, ick and pain that I’ve experienced in the last 16 years because I was always so busy and worried about someone else’s health.
Now, I’m only worried about me and the kids.
The kids are great though. Aside from Alice texting me from school that I should pick her up because she’s “hot”, she’s great. Girlfriend left the house in a cloud of Miss. Dior and a shirt that looked like a bra — Of course she’s “hot”. There is no way she’s overheated though.
Owen is rocking a new haircut and discovered that he loves learning about World War 2, so he’s occupied for a few months.
I’m irritated more easily - things people say to me cut a bit deeper - which is crazy. I used to pretend that I was rubber. Nothing penetrated. What I’m learning in my very expensive therapy is that I DO have feelings and they DO matter and that one day I might even be brave enough to tell people how they make me FEEL.
I live in active fear of the day when I tell people how I feel. I imagine that when I do their bodies will evaporate from this plane and then will reconstitute on another, because no one can handle me having feelings in this dimension.
Barring what I’ve just shared about having feelings, and my physical attraction to fruit, I’m more practical than ever.
I’m sure about what I want, and more protective of my time and my people. The sweeping drama that accompanied the end of my marriage is gone, and I have a drama-free life.
I love it.
I’m just a little bored. Not so bored that I’m going to mess it all up and get a bunch of neck tattoos, but bored enough to notice the difference.
I feel like I’m just a piece of peeled sexy fruit because it’s all new to me. I’m just trying on being a drama free, lipstick wearing, emotion feeling, wrinkly woman. I’m basically a banana wearing kiwi skins and it’s not bad, it’s just new.
So, if you’re looking into me like the Evil Queen, sussing out what parts of my life might look good on you, just know that behind the glass is a piece of naked fruit trying a whole bunch of new shit.
If that’s for you, cool. If not, also cool. Do you, and this week, I’m doing trying to be a mango.