I Miss Myself

Sometimes I think a woman can miss herself while being present for absolutely everything.

She has answered the messages. She knows when the appointment is and which bill needs paying. People have spoken to her all week, and she has listened carefully enough to ask the right questions.

Then a song comes on in the car, and she remembers being someone who would have turned it up.

She still likes the song. She just hasn’t thought to turn anything up in a while.

I’m interested in that moment. There can be a little grief in it, followed by an urge to drive past the turn for home.

We talk a great deal about women losing themselves, but the phrase can make it sound as though something dramatic has happened. Often, the woman herself would have trouble telling you when it began. She got busy. Somebody needed her. An ordinary stretch of life required more than she expected, and she found ways to get through it.

She put a few things aside.

Eventually, she stopped noticing what she was putting aside. Getting through the day became familiar enough that she began arranging the next one around it.

There are clothes she likes that she never wears because they seem like too much trouble for wherever she’s going. There’s a friend she keeps meaning to call when she has something more interesting to report. At dinner, she has an opinion, but explaining it would take energy, and the conversation moves on.

A life can get very quiet this way, even when the house is loud.

And then, occasionally, something brings her back into contact with herself.

She makes someone laugh and remembers how much she enjoys being funny. She gets drawn into a conversation and has to be reminded that everyone is leaving. She wanders into a shop and finds herself touching a coat she has absolutely no practical reason to own.

For a few minutes, she’s absorbed. She has forgotten to monitor how she’s coming across or calculate how much time she has left.

I love those moments. I also think they can be uncomfortable.

Once you remember that you enjoy being interesting company, it becomes harder to overlook the evenings you spend barely speaking. Once you feel good in your clothes, you may start asking why getting dressed has become an exercise in disappearing. An afternoon you thoroughly enjoy can leave you unexpectedly irritated with the way you’ve been spending your afternoons.

Pleasure has consequences. It can give you information you then have to decide what to do with.

I suspect that’s one reason we keep some of our desires at a manageable distance. It’s easier to say we’ll travel someday than to admit we want to go somewhere our partner has no interest in visiting. It’s easier to save the dress than to wear it and discover how much we’ve missed being looked at. Even wanting an evening alone can require a conversation we’d rather postpone.

So we wait for a version of life in which our desires will be more convenient.

I have considerable affection for the woman who finally says, “I would like to do this,” while everyone is still accustomed to her saying, “Whatever works for you.”

Her voice might shake a little. She might explain more than she needs to. She might enjoy herself and then spend the drive home wondering whether she was selfish.

I hope she goes again.

I hope she gives herself enough occasions to find out who she is these days. Some of what she used to love may leave her cold. Something she once dismissed may become the thing she talks about too much over dinner. She deserves the chance to be surprised by herself.

At this age, I have little appetite for a project that requires a woman to catalogue her deficiencies before she’s allowed to have a good time. I’d much rather hear what made her curious this week. I want to know where she went, what she ordered, whose company she enjoyed, and whether she stayed longer than she intended.

A woman saying “I miss myself” has already felt a flicker of recognition. Some part of her remembers the sound of her own laugh when she isn’t holding it back.

I’d like her to have more reasons to hear it.



Turn up the song. You can decide where you’re going when you reach the next corner.