Why Women Reinvent Themselves; From My Experience: A Feminist View

     Everyone changes.  Yes it is true.  I have often wondered what it would be like to be a man, and I see why women can feel less liberated, let alone the workplace, equal pay, politics, etc..  It seems like men might feel less self-conscious about being loners, drinking too much, being frustrated artists, being insane (just kidding).  It seems all this becomes them.  At least in the movies it does, but women are stuck in this thing of having to be feminine and ladylike, and all that seems butch on us.  I have behaved in all those ways, but never mind.
     When our lives change, we change.  When I was married with two small children, I dressed and wore my hair very neat and smooth and tied down and went to soccer games and cub scout meeting, sang in a talent show at the elementary school, had birthday parties with balloons or chucky cheese for my kids and had cookouts with my husband and company with cocktails.
     My brother remembers coming to a yard sale at my house after I was single.  I guess I was selling everything, unable to pay the mortgage on my own with the kids or at least David.  We had split custody.  He had Teddy, the older one and I had David the baby.  Then of course he ended up with both for a little while and then I ended up with both of them for the rest of their growing up years.
     Anyway, my brother, Chris, said I looked different.  My hair was really wild and I was wearing lace up work style army boots.  I am not sure what that was about.  
      And really the rest is history.  In 2001 I changed my name to 'Sage' because the Cherokee Native Americans used sage sticks to smudge out bad vibes and evil spirits.  Then about two years ago I went back to my birth name Leslie, although some people still call me Sage, like a nickname.
     I think when our lives change we change.  Perhaps the boots I was wearing represented some sort of protest, and the wild hair as well.
Who knows, but how could I stay the same when I could not really hold my life together.
I have regrets.  The marriage I could not do anything about, but I dream about that house and have wanted it back so desperately.  I missed my kids the times they were with him. I wish I could have been a different kind of person, one that made every right decision.  I suppose that is a bit unrealistic though when you really think about it.  
     Perhaps it is time to forget the past, to surrender to what is and accept myself but that is easier said than done.