I think The Wizard of Oz is one of the best books ever written. Unlike most people, however, I don’t think the best parts are those that come after Dorothy discovers that the Wizard is a sham. Once she opens the curtain and exposes the balding little man working strings and levers to make the “magic” happen, it is not the beginning of an adventure, but the beginning of the end. At that point, she loses hope. There will be no wizard who will save her; no white knight. Then and there she knows that she’s going to have to save her damn self. The winged monkeys and the wicked witch are just distractions. At the end, it’s just a girl and her shoes.
I started thinking about The Wizard of Oz the other day after a conversation with Big Bren. Brendan had gone to bed and we were laying about, just killing time. I was on our bed, in my flannel pajamas, doing what I always do in the evening before bed – reading the gossip rags on line. Suddenly, the conversation turned to how I had been 10 years ago, when Big Bren and I first met. Smiling, he said, “I like you better now. You’re more real. I’ve made you into a woman; you know, a wife.” For a minute, my blood ran cold. Not that I don’t like being a mom and a wife; I most definitely do. But I feel like I had to kill my inner wizard to become that.
In some sense, Big Bren is right. When we met, I was a completely different person. I would work at the firm until late in the evening, then go hang out with my co-workers at some posh restaurant or bar. All my clothes were designer and I thought nothing of spending $1,000 on a handbag. I had a personal trainer at the local gym, and a standing appointment on Tuesdays with a Russian aesthetician named Anya, who gave me a mani and pedi and made sure that my various parts were plucked and/or waxed to my satisfaction. I had a closet full of lingerie and I could not walk out of my apartment in the morning if my bra and panties did not match. What can I say, I was a bit of a pretentious twit. But that was my curtain; everything that anyone saw was simply the projection -- the show -- that I was putting on. None of it was real.
I don’t know when my wizard died (let’s face it, that old me ain’t making a comeback). A piece of her died when I got carbon monoxide poisoning in the Murray Hill apartment that I rented for more money than I could reasonably afford, because I convinced myself that I just had to live in Manhattan. I was removed unconscious from that apartment in my fabulous Victoria’s Secret underwear.
Maybe she died when I started suffering stress attacks after the carbon monoxide incident and I couldn’t sleep for fear that I wouldn’t wake up. It’s hard to think about matching underwear when you’re falling apart psychologically.
No, I don’t know how or when it happened. Big Bren did not ride in on big white horse to rescue me. There was no knight in shining armor. We just took one step at a time. It feels like I just woke up one day, wearing no make-up, with unshaved and unwaxed body parts, stuffed into flannel pajamas. It wasn’t something that I planned or even wanted. And, yet, it is more real to me than anything I have ever lived before. When my little guy rains kisses on my face, it’s worth more than a million Gucci bags. When I put my head on my husband’s chest at night, he doesn’t care that I haven’t had a manicure in a month.
I started thinking about The Wizard of Oz the other day after a conversation with Big Bren. Brendan had gone to bed and we were laying about, just killing time. I was on our bed, in my flannel pajamas, doing what I always do in the evening before bed – reading the gossip rags on line. Suddenly, the conversation turned to how I had been 10 years ago, when Big Bren and I first met. Smiling, he said, “I like you better now. You’re more real. I’ve made you into a woman; you know, a wife.” For a minute, my blood ran cold. Not that I don’t like being a mom and a wife; I most definitely do. But I feel like I had to kill my inner wizard to become that.
In some sense, Big Bren is right. When we met, I was a completely different person. I would work at the firm until late in the evening, then go hang out with my co-workers at some posh restaurant or bar. All my clothes were designer and I thought nothing of spending $1,000 on a handbag. I had a personal trainer at the local gym, and a standing appointment on Tuesdays with a Russian aesthetician named Anya, who gave me a mani and pedi and made sure that my various parts were plucked and/or waxed to my satisfaction. I had a closet full of lingerie and I could not walk out of my apartment in the morning if my bra and panties did not match. What can I say, I was a bit of a pretentious twit. But that was my curtain; everything that anyone saw was simply the projection -- the show -- that I was putting on. None of it was real.
I don’t know when my wizard died (let’s face it, that old me ain’t making a comeback). A piece of her died when I got carbon monoxide poisoning in the Murray Hill apartment that I rented for more money than I could reasonably afford, because I convinced myself that I just had to live in Manhattan. I was removed unconscious from that apartment in my fabulous Victoria’s Secret underwear.
Maybe she died when I started suffering stress attacks after the carbon monoxide incident and I couldn’t sleep for fear that I wouldn’t wake up. It’s hard to think about matching underwear when you’re falling apart psychologically.
No, I don’t know how or when it happened. Big Bren did not ride in on big white horse to rescue me. There was no knight in shining armor. We just took one step at a time. It feels like I just woke up one day, wearing no make-up, with unshaved and unwaxed body parts, stuffed into flannel pajamas. It wasn’t something that I planned or even wanted. And, yet, it is more real to me than anything I have ever lived before. When my little guy rains kisses on my face, it’s worth more than a million Gucci bags. When I put my head on my husband’s chest at night, he doesn’t care that I haven’t had a manicure in a month.
Sometimes, when “real” life threatens to overwhelm me, I wish I could click my heels three times and go back to that life – it seems so easy, so glamorous, in comparison to my reality today. But I know, as Dorothy came to learn, that there really is no place like home. Right now, there may be more dish-washing than Broadway plays and more laundry than pomegranate martinis, but, at the end of the day, it is the place that I call home.
1 comment:
I had not seen the story this way but wow, well put. Reading your entry makes me analyse my life through the same lenses. Where have I been? Inspiring!!!
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