::::::::
Not long ago I received an email from a friend who was on a much needed respite half way around the world. She had just come through a harrowing divorce and she described how she had spent New Year's Eve in a foreign land: "I stood on a bridge full of locals as they celebrated noisily. In that moment, I felt that I was exactly where I ought to be. I was doing exactly what I wanted to do. It seemed that I knew who I was, or who I was becoming."
Some time before that I'd heard from another divorced friend who had just spent a night in a hotel room all by herself. She was on a business trip and it was the first time she'd ever had a room to herself in a hotel. It may be hard for seasoned single women to relate to her excitement Erma Bombeck once quipped that "once you've figured out how the Kleenex dispenser in the hotel bathroom works, the thrill is over" but for women who've never had "a room of their own," the pleasure of having your own space can be absolutely intoxicating. "It was wonderful!" my friend said. "I used all those little soaps and hand creams and wore the thick robe and lay on the bed without unmaking it. I didn't even pick up the towels from the floor!" She'd enjoyed the wet bar, used the TV clicker until her fingers were numb, and gobbled the pillow chocolate.
Her joy wasn't really about robes, TV clickers, or chocolates. It was about being self-indulgent after years of behaving, caretaking, walking on eggs at work, and suffering a less than satisfying marriage. She was experiencing a pound of pleasure from an ounce of solitude because she was totally unaccustomed to doing whatever she wanted and to putting herself first.
This expression of freedom is not about being selfish; it's about women who find a new sense of self in a re-imagined world, a world in which they begin to realize their worth and to find their own voices after years of self-suppression, and often external oppression. For women like my two friends who have gone from their father's home to their husband's home, from being a child to having a child, from quieting their opinions to having none, a night alone can be exquisitely satisfying. So many women have never experienced that aloneness or autonomy the quiet of a room that only you inhabit, the peacefulness of thoughts undisturbed and not judged, the luxury of sleep when you're tired, eating when you're hungry, rising up or settling down when it suits no one but yourself. More importantly, many of them have never had a sense of legitimacy or experienced their own agency. For years, my two friends thought their marginalization at home, in their communities, in the world -- was normal. It never occurred to them that they had a right to make decisions about things that affected them, let alone to have ideas about such issues as peace and security or national economic priorities.
I once had a colleague in Asia who ran a women's program in the early days of "empowering" women. She said she worked slowly with the women because "if I teach them to hold up their heads suddenly, their necks will snap. But if they can open slowly, they will be like a flower, beautiful and strong."
My newly divorced friend, who has never worked outside the home before or handled finances independently, or quite trusted herself when it came to childrearing decisions, is now opening, beautiful and strong, as she finds her way to a new and more vigorous identity, just as my other friend, who just earned her Ph.D., did before her. I so much admire them and women like them, who often have no sense of their own courage as they forge new lives in a self-crafted world.
I think each and every women like them deserves a night on Conrad Hilton, a time when they can wrap themselves up in fluffy robes, watch as many old flicks as they care to, indulge in a brandy or two, and leave out the "Do Not Disturb" sign (unless they are waiting for room service.)
More importantly, they each deserve kudos and support as they find their feet and make their way into a wider world than they have known before. No matter what the circumstances, it's not easy to end a marriage, or to forge ahead on your own. March 8th being International Women's Day, I salute the many women who do it. They are all beautiful flowers.
