A Coming-of-Age Tale for Women
A good coming-of-age story resonates with us all, even when its depiction bares no resemblance to our own lives. It’s the growth story that resonates with us, not the circumstances that brought it about. It’s such a common book and movie trope that it’s rarely remarked upon these days.
But it seems that the most powerful coming-of-age tales aren’t just for children anymore. They are for women, and they’re not about journeys from childhood to adulthood. Instead, we’re seeing the stories of women coming into their own, no matter how old they may be.
Is there anything more resonant than the story of a woman with an inarticulate longing for something more? We savor her story, and we call it a ripening, or blossoming. We use those words because they are both natural and powerful, and it’s a rare story that doesn’t encompass how she owns her sexuality and personal power. We watch her lean into her freedom, and we lean with her.
Just like with any other coming-of-age story, it doesn’t matter if the details are the same as our own stories. We still understand the transformation. She- this fictional character- becomes us all. She is either the woman we want to be or the woman we are or the woman we’re becoming. She might even be the woman we failed to become and still secretly long for. She touches us all because we know what it’s like to have inarticulate longings. We just don’t always know what to do about them.
There’s a powerful draw to this sort of story because we know how powerful a woman transforming can be- even if we don’t always acknowledge it. It’s not just a powerful story; it’s a powerful truth. I’ve been there myself.
I feel like the last several years of my life have been a tale of ripening into the woman I am now. My story might seem typical- early marriage, divorce in my 30s, single motherhood, dating, and moving from a practical career into an artistic one. But the fact that it’s not an extraordinary tale doesn’t make it less impactful. In fact, it’s sometimes the simple stories that are the most appealing. We can paint our own stories over the details.
I’ve never been in a physically abusive relationship, but I can read about one and see myself in the transformation that takes place when we acknowledge something we’ve long been denying. I can relate to the idea of breaking free from something harmful and discovering what it means to be independent. Regardless of how the woman becomes herself, we can see ourselves in her.
It’s not just women. I’m sure men can also relate to a good transformation story. It’s just that I think women understand that men don’t have the exact same challenges. I’m not saying that they don’t struggle, but their struggles aren’t always exacerbated by gendered issues. I can even acknowledge that a coming-of-age story about a woman of color has nuances and challenges that I, as a white woman, could never truly fathom. But I can see her, and I can honor her path to herself.
Because that is what a becoming truly is: it’s a casting aside of who society told us we should be and owning who we truly are. It’s about being deeply authentic and learning to accept ourselves without condition. It’s about doing the thing that brings us back to ourselves even if it means leaving relationships or jobs or countries.
It’s not an easy transformation, but we see that it’s always rewarding, even if the reward isn’t the kind we’ve been taught to chase. A good transformation story shows us that other people won’t like our ripening into our full power. It will show us that the challenges don’t stop just because we make the hard choice. But this sort of coming-of-age tale leaves no doubt in our mind that she is better off for having blossomed.
It’s true for us, too. It’s why we show up in droves to watch these tales and why we read about them. We know that we are capable of more, and we feel that longing to be who we are and to be in the kind of relationships that allow for us to be that person. When we’re being inauthentic in our own lives or when we’re in relationships that keep us limited, we know it at the core of our being. It becomes more than the elephant in the room; it’s the stone lodged in our hearts, weighing us down. Once we know it, we can’t un-know it, no matter how hard we might try.
So we show up instead with popcorn and live through her transformation. We turn the pages of the book we can’t quite put down to see how she did it, as if these stories could offer us a road map through our own personal ripening. We want the cheat sheet that will help us get through it, and we seem to forget the fact that if this fictional She has to go through struggle to achieve what she wants, then so do we. In fact, I would even venture to say that her growth wouldn’t be the same without these challenges. She wouldn’t push so hard to become what she needs to be. The story wouldn’t be as riveting, and it wouldn’t resonate as strongly. If it was easy, we would be Her already.
I spent years denying that my life needed to be turned upside down. I had done all the things I thought I should. I married the boyfriend I’d dated for years. I finished an undergraduate and graduate degree program before I had children. I started and ended careers that suited me or didn’t. I thought I knew what my life was supposed to look like, but it became clear that I only knew what my life wasn’t supposed to look like.
I could see what it was, and I knew that it wasn’t healthy for me to stay in that situation. I could feel that stone lodged in me, that absolute knowing that if I stayed, things could go from bad to worse. Living like that could have eaten me alive, was eating me alive. I had to get out. I had to be brave enough to go with no job and little support and no idea what I would do next or how I could raise 2 kids on my own.
I could tell you that I started saving, that I took my time to get there, but the truth is that when I realized it was time, it didn’t take as long as I thought it would to make the leap. I wasn’t able to save much, but I saved a little- just enough to cover a moving truck, deposits on an apartment, and a little left over for groceries. And I left. I represented myself in the divorce because I couldn’t afford an attorney. I took a job that could have been any job just to support my kids, but then I found myself blossoming again in a new direction- back to my first love, the love I had given up as impossible. I began to write.
It’s years later, and here I am. I tell you the abridged version of my own story to say that coming-of-age stories for women resonate with us because our culture doesn’t often let us naturally grow into who we are. It dictates to us who we should be, and for some reason, we believe it. So we chase educations and careers that we may not want. We settle for the relationships we think we deserve. We have kids because someone else decreed it should be so. Few of our decisions come to us because we longed for them, but longing grows in us nonetheless.
Inarticulate longings become articulated. Struggle to be the person we think we should be becomes the struggle to break away from that persona to be who we are. A blossoming begins. A ripening. We come into our full power.
These tales resonate because they are all of us — or at least the potential of what we all could be if only….
So we show up with popcorn or eagerly turn the page. We’ll live through her story because it was ours, or because maybe one day it will be. It’s not a road map. It’s not a cheat sheet. It’s hope.
A Coming-of-Age Tale for Women
Research & References of A Coming-of-Age Tale for Women|A&C Accounting And Tax Services
Source