The Rage of Women of a Certain Age

And a little about mine in particular

A little over a year ago, I paid a lot of money to do a thing that was completely out of character for me. I took a guided mushroom trip.

I’m not claiming to be a straight-arrow. I enjoyed a lot of recreational drugs when I was younger, most notably in the VIP Room of Studio 54. I’m not trying to impress you. If I was, I’d come up with a fresher reference. Because being old enough to have stared at Andy Warhol across a glittery lounge of equally famous people doing blow, only means that I am now eligible to get into ABC cinemas for a dollar less than a fifty-nine-year-old. I’m simply offering it here as evidence that mind-altering substances as an oeuvre are known to me. Just not hallucinogens.

The reason why is simple. I have a tenuous relationship with reality anyway. I live probably seventy-five percent of my life in my head. There’s an entire city in there. Peopled by parts of myself who talk to other parts of myself. Fed by new ideas I imbibe through constant reading, both in hard copy and through Audible. Lately, I read a book about the Alligator murders down in Florida (it’s always Florida) and wow, just wow, when I reemerged from the dark and swampy environs of my mind, Walz had been named Harris’s running mate.

It is not unusual (in fact it is common) for me to mix up my inner life with the outer world. I create entire stories about people I know that are based on nothing at all. Reasons why friends got divorced. Certitude that a colleague comes from an extremely wealthy family, only to find out that they never said anything of the kind. For years I was convinced that a dear friend was widowed when her husband opened a car door to spit out a piece of gum and the car ran over him. Turns out, she was never widowed or even married, and didn’t recognize the story.

All this has made me reluctant to mess with any tethers that keep me grounded in reality. That said, because of my extensive reading, I got interested in the spectacular work around plant medicine and trauma. And, as a male friend often says, “If you are female, you’re traumatized.”

That’s where I’m going with this, by the way. Women. Trauma. Specifically the rage of women of a certain age.

During the mushroom trip, I vomited for quite a long period of time. All while refusing to ask for any help. Purging isn’t a given with mushrooms. It’s not like Ayahuasca, where it’s expected. In fact, I had chosen mushrooms partly to avoid a deluge. That, and I wanted to be with a guide – my tether.

When I talked about the trip later to the guide (in a sort-of outtake situation), he suggested that I might have had such a violent reaction because maybe a lot of stuff was “coming up”.  “What could that be?” I asked. He paused, then said in the form of a question, “Maybe anger?”

Whaaaat?

If you asked close friends and family to make a list of ten adjectives that define me, “angry” wouldn’t be on any of their lists. I seldom raise my voice and whenever someone is angry with me, I tend to freeze like a possum on top of a garbage can when caught in the beam of a flashlight. The list might include, “resentful”, “envious”, and definitely, “intense”, but not angry. I come from a family who literally wrote notes to each other (in longhand) about our grievances. In one such note, my brother called my mother a bitch. But it would never have occurred to him to call her that out loud, in person. Why my mother kept that note for decades is a question for the ages, now that she’s gone.

Even if I had recognized anger in myself during my first fifty years on the planet, I wouldn’t have given it voice. Because my highest ambition in life was for everyone to like me. A lot. So on the rare occasions that I was forced to let someone know that they had made me mildly, slightly upset (but I was sure there was a good reason), I buried my point in such mitigation (look, I’ve been there; we all have bad days) that they could be forgiven for thinking I was giving them a pep talk.

So when the mushroom guide gently allowed for the possibility that what I’d been stuffing down, all these years, was anger – well, that took me by surprise.

But only for a minute.

Because I don’t know a woman over fifty who isn’t dealing with a certain level of red, hot rage. Much of it is specific to our particular circumstances. Mine from growing up in a male dominated household where my brothers were allowed permissions and freedoms that were denied me (both by society at large and my parents). They would probably disagree. Partly, because we were a genuinely loving family and were considered quite socially liberal. Except for the time when my father told me I couldn’t take drum lessons and should consider the flute. And I get that that is such a silly example – but when it’s added to all the other silly things, it does have an effect. It tends to make one, well, “resentful”, “envious”, and “intense”.

My beautiful, almost perfect (except she wasn’t) mother would often explain that things were the way they were because, “you’re a girl”.

A couple of years ago, I tried to talk to one of my brothers about this subtle, but cumulative, difference in our upbringings and our divergent experiences in the world at large. He listened attentively and replied with genuine charity, “I believe that you believe that.” To be fair, I’d probably mitigated the hell out of my complaints to the point where they seemed petty. See? There I go again.

Then there was the time I tearfully explained to my mother that the man who sat in our living room at that exact moment (we were in the kitchen) had raped me. Repeatedly. He had been my partner and so it was difficult for her to think of rape within that context. She looked at me with deep concern and said, “Oh honey. All men pressure women into sex.”

So, yeah. Rage.

And I’m not even a bad case. A high-school friend of mine recently left her husband and entire family (the children are grown) to move half way across the country to a city where she knew no one. She simply couldn’t take care of everybody any more. Now she’s loving her single, even slightly solitary, life so much, she’s moving yet again -- to Ghana. Yeah – Ghana.

Frankly, most of my divorced friends of a certain age are some of the most self-realized, joyful women I know. They have robust support systems (mostly each other) and get to do whatever the fuck they want, when they want, how they want.

There’s a type of complaining about husbands, and men in general, that I abhor. So I have to be careful here. I’m talking about that nattering, nagging, bonding complaining that happens amongst wives and mothers that leans very much into virtue signaling. “Of course, he can never find his keys” ,“I told him to get out of my kitchen before he kills himself chopping onions. Can you believe it?”, “I buy all the presents for Christmas; he wouldn’t know where to begin” – All followed by shrieks of knowing laughter and pats on the knee --  

While I sympathize with indulgers in that brand of complaining, it’s sort of like employees kvetching about the boss. You know they’re not going to do anything about it. They’re “letting off steam” and that’s about it. Everything will return to the status quo, because really they pretty much like the status quo.

Give me the divorcees and lesbians any day. Using their rage like an efficient sharp knife, cutting away that which makes them feel powerless.

Let me remind you, I’m speaking in broad strokes here.

I have to remind you so you keep liking me.

When I recently spent a month by myself in England, one of the most powerful realizations I had was that I simply adored being alone. I couldn’t get enough of it. I got to indulge me nerdy obsession with Tudor England and buy a necklace made out of an antique spoon. I bought a fuzzy pink purse on Portobello Road. And, yes, I probably could have just as well done these things with my husband and sons. But finding out who I am when I’m not trying my damndest to be liked, felt like being set free. And that is unraveling some of the rage that has been knit into my soul.

The rage that is left, however, is red hot. The kind that I’m only just now learning to give voice to in ways that are useful. I don’t entirely know what that looks like yet. But I’ve got twenty good years to find out.

Weeks later, I took the purse and myself to New York City.