Thursday, July 1, 2010

Loving Women

I work with women everyday.  I'm an obstetrics nurse and all of my coworkers are women.  Outside of the security guards and maintenance men that may stop to visit the unit on occasion, my job consists of all women all the time.  Next, are my patients.  Beautiful, large, filled pregnant patients.  Women.  My shifts are complete with women - and their partners.  Partners are interesting to me - but that's for a different blog, different day.  This space is for women, today.

I think I've always loved women.  I've always wanted women to love me. 

During my years I spent married - pretending - lying - acting - I would form close friendships with women, lots of women.  I needed to be close to women.  I wanted to go dress shopping with close friends just so I could share a dressing room and be able to admire their bodies.  I would want to find ways to be physically close to my friends also, but not physically intimate - I'm not sure if that makes sense.  Probably only to anyone else that had to keep a secret like I did for so long.

My mother's group all so much as banished me when I left my husband and came out.  Three of the 7 other women in our group even blocked me on Facebook.  BLOCKED me.  During the years we were friends though, we truly shared so much of ourselves.  I was able to get the closeness and the intimacy that I could never attain in my marriage; however, I could never really get close enough.

I can't remember what I learned about first: the female anatomy, the process of birth, or midwifery.  Probably the female anatomy, but what came next I'm not sure of.  I just know that my love for women, all women of all kinds, has led me to midwifery.

Some don't realize that midwives aren't "just like doctors." We are quite the contrary actually.  Some don't realize that we don't just "deliver babies in homes."  Midwives are primary care providers... we care for all women in many age groups, any socioeconomic group, healthy and sometimes not.  I love healthcare; I love birth; and I love women.

I've also learned to love me, as a woman, and to accept myself, as a woman.  I worried for a while, that living (and lying) as a straight woman for so long would inhibit myself in finding love from another woman or in loving myself.  I'm on my path though.  I love myself as I am and in doing so I can love another for who she is.

It feels good to be me, today.  We'll see what tomorrow brings though.

3 comments:

Becca said...

I think I was just the opposite. The entire time I was married, I spent my time around guys. Women made me uncomfortable, and anything that is uncomfortable I must avoid, lol! Now that I've been out for almost 4 years, I find that almost all my friends are female. I think it's because now I am not threatened by their presence, they don't make me uncomfortable, in truth almost all of them are a blessing to be around because of their different personalities. And, the fact that I know my friends will catch me if I fall.

d. said...

I'm so glad you're living authentically, Ellen. It makes my heart happy. :)

Also, I love midwives. When I was pregnant with Sophie (10 years ago?!) my midwife was a midwife-in-training and I adored her. After Sophie was born, I kept her as my primary care and I still go to her for everything - she refers me out to others if she can't provide treatment. I wouldn't have it any other way. I wrote an update once on fb that if she had decided against widwifery as a career, she could have been a great therapist.

She was also the one who helped me through my crisis pregnancy 6 years ago and I can't thank her enough for being there for me when I needed a woman *like her* to help get me through it.

I'm sure you will be that for others as well. ((hugs))

LGA said...

After writing this... I started to think about all of the asshole women I know that pissed me off and fucked me up. I thought about writing a "Part II" to this post.

Then I realized, that it wasn't necessarily because they were Women, that made them assholes and fucked me up, they were just ... assholes.

In general... women are hard to deal with. However... I kind of like that. I like the complexity.