The Existential Woman

Shoshanna, often just called Shanna, was struggling after having turned 50. She had spent the last years of her 40s coming to terms with loss of family, loss of career, and loss of reputation. She had spent many tears and lonely days and nights pondering how it all went "wrong" and why life hadn't turned out the way she thought it was supposed to. She had spat venom at taunters who wanted to "teach" her how to be, as she clung to her "freedom" with her bitten down fingers with every last hope and strength she had left.

After two years spent trying to find herself again, define herself again, know herself again, and love herself again, she came to the conclusion that she had definitely changed in some ways, but at her core she was still the same girl who wanted the same things out of life. Beauty, peace, pleasure, love, joy, and success. Those passions in her heart and the longing for those had never changed, even if they were absent or put out of her mind for her struggles. The main thing that had changed about her wasn't a simple thing like her appearance or her voice. What had really changed about her was her perception and understanding of money, economics, social status, responsibility, and institutions. Her ideas had changed, but her desires had not changed. After all the pain and humiliation endured through her failures and losses, she still felt triumphant having learned so much and having survived what many thought would destroy her completely. She hadn't just changed biologically because she couldn't get pregnant anymore. She had changed personally, to include a more reasonable outlook on life, and a more fair approach when considering people and situations. She had once thought that her greatest achievements were education, marriage, and motherhood. But after accepting the age and decade of her 50s, her new attitude and belief was that her greatest accomplishment was being true to her desires, and surviving what she didn't even know was her greatest fear - change. Knowing that she had survived it, knowing that she could survive it... that was her greatest accomplishment.

Shanna remembered old photographs. She once had a collection passed down from her mother of photos saved from the years of her childhood. Beautiful sentimental photographs of her mother (who Shanna always considered the most beautiful woman in the world) and her living the childhood life that her mother always wanted. The little girl in the lovely dresses celebrating birthday parties and Christmas gatherings, recieving an abundance of carefully wrapped presents, and eating the best of home cooked food and desserts. A childhood so glamourous and exciting, that the concept of growing out of it (or growing up) seemed too horrific to ever give credit to. Shanna had lost all the photo albums once kept lovingly in her walk-in closet. She had thought those photos would be cherished not only with her heart and sentiments, but by someone else like her only son who might have seen the beauty of that life the same way she did. She cried for some time about the loss of those photographs, but the childhood memories and the beauty of the women who loved her as a child remained in her heart and in her memory. She missed the comforting days spent with her mother and grandmother. They were long gone and she didn't even have any photographs of them together. Not one photograph to prove that those good times happened in her life.

Shanna was blessed with various talents. She had a good singing voice and could carry a tune. She loved to dance, and even though she wasn't professionally trained, one could see her joy when she moved to the music. She had a good eye for design and decor. She enjoyed making things or at least making things pretty. She loved poetry and words and loved to walk through the library or book store just to see what other word lovers were admiring. She so desperately wanted to use her "gifts" for some greater cause. She had tried to develop as an online merchant, but she failed at proving profits, although her customers did report that dealing with her was a pleasure. She fought hard against her depression, but she really didn't know what to be or do at this point in her life. She was lonely, bored, restless, and very confused. The world around her looked the same in many ways, yet every day she would hear or see or experience something that informed her how much the world had changed, and she simply did not know how else she could change within it so that she could fit in and participate. Was she really too old to contribute? Was the feeling of being left out and rejected the only feeling that she would know in her 50s?