LETTER TO EVELYN

[Originally written in 2005 as an invited submission to a women's anthology, Dropped Threads 3. It wasn't bought, because something along the same lines had already been accepted, the editor told me. It was revised in 2011 and 2012, in part to delete some family names for privacy purposes.]

I'm writing this letter to you, my Evelyn (do you mind if I call you "Evie"?), the daughter I never had.

I do hope you like your name. "Evelyn" was my much-loved paternal grandmother's name and is my middle name. I think it's beautiful. I also love the name Eleanor, for reasons you'll soon understand. "Evie Eleanor": I like the sound of both of them.

I want to tell you what I wish I'd known when I was 20: how to handle the rage of being a woman in a society that will repress and mistreat you; how to resist betraying your gifts by giving in to the pressure of finding economic security; how not to expect to find that mythical creature "the love of your life."

You'll have to create your own meaning in a world that has no inherent meaning; find the courage to be an artist—if that’s what you want—despite the fears of failure and strainings for perfection that are, in part, your inheritance from me; recognize and accept that people who don't have your gifts will envy and hate you, as they also will if you happen to be good-looking; recognize that you're a passionate woman and your needs have a right to be met, else you will not be a whole person and you will have many regrets, if not health problems, as a consequence.

I'm crying as I write, because thinking about this has brought up many griefs:

—For my paternal grandmother, Evelyn, whom I called "Nanny" and loved dearly and still miss even though she died more than 40 years ago. She was a bright, frustrated woman married to a man who thought women existed only to look after their families. (He had a temper, too, I heard.) She took to drink after her only daughter, Shirley [pictured right], died aged six. She later sobered up, but the trauma of that little girl's death reverberated down through the generations.

—For my mother, whose middle name was Eleanor, who had to give up self-respect in order to have peace in the house she shared with a difficult and demanding husband (who once assaulted her in front of me and, once she developed Alzheimer's, was not at all kind to her) but who managed to teach me how to be independent and that it's better to be single than unhappily married. Mom died of a stroke. By the time she died, she didn't know who I was any more, but at least she was fond of who she thought I was—somebody she'd known when she was a girl. She had gifts for gardening and photography and organization and was my father's equal in intelligence and was the reason that I looked for an equal in a life partner. But she was also part of the reason for the ambivalence I felt about becoming a mother. She told me that she'd had great difficulty coping when my brother and I were young; she was alone, mostly (her husband was usually away, photographing Canada's Arctic), on an air force base that was its own little suburban world, and she had no family or friends nearby to help her. She'd had a hell of a time, it was clear (and possibly had post-partum depression after my birth), and my father never understood why. "She had a neighbour she could call," he'd say.

—For one of my mother's sisters, Deltra ("Del"), who, because of rheumatic fever that damaged her heart, was unable to have children—or even to get married; her one suitor backed off when he learned she couldn't have a baby without it killing her. Del had an extraordinary gift for loving and understanding children. She was also academically brilliant (graduated high school at 14) but couldn’t go to university because (a) her younger brother wasn't yet old enough to work the family farm, so she had to stay at home and help with the farm work, and (b) there was no longer the spare money in the family that had been brought in with her mother's marriage; it had been spent on music lessons and nursing school for her elder sister, who'd promised to pay for Del's post-secondary education but got married instead. Del had to make her own way in the world—starting out by being a maid for a rich family, for God's sake. For the rest of her life, she bore an enormous burden of resentment—including against me for giving her mumps when I was six months old. What kind of woman resents a baby for something the baby can’t help—and makes sure to let her know of the grudge when she's older? A frustrated one, that's what kind. Yet she still was a role model for me as a single woman. (For my mother's other sister, I have no griefs. I think she had a contented and fulfilled life, and she loved children—and me—very much, and in an uncomplicated way. Her pet name for me was "Mrs. Toad," because of the way I looked when I sat up as a chubby baby. At one time, she must have read the classic children's book Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame, one of whose animal characters was called "Toad [of Toad Hall]." Her daughter told me in later life that she'd been "best buds" with her mother.)

—And for myself, because I had to learn a "practical" profession that offered economic security instead of following my dreams to be a writer or a comic actor; because I tried—and, it must be said, failed—to learn so late in life to love myself instead of repeating "Never good enough"; because I've had glimpses of the relaxed, fulfilled and happier woman I could have been without the social phobia, the chronic pain, the unrealistic romantic expectations.

Most of all, I'm crying for you, because you never were. I love children, and I would have loved you so much. But I couldn't have raised you on my own. Single parenthood—and, almost certainly, poverty—were not choices I was willing to make when I realized I couldn't picture bearing the children of any of the men who were interested in marrying me. Trying to be a Superwoman as a single mother with a career would've killed me. And trying to have a girl and not a boy? I can't tell you how many women I know who, in trying to have one daughter, bore three boys in a row. Sex selection of children wasn't an option when I was a twenty-something.

Did you know that married men live longer than single men because they have wives to look after them? (That is, assuming the wife isn't an immature narcissist.) In order to be a "wife," I would've had to sacrifice essentials (identity, privacy, solitude, independence, self-sufficiency) in return for... what? More housework? I needed to live alone to think, write, develop my skills in dancing and singing, be productive in paid and volunteer work, and cope with chronic insomnia, which worsened when I was in my twenties.

I don't make a point of advertising my next revelation, because even nowadays, the admission that one of your interests is science fiction and fantasy leads some people to think you're a flake, not worth taking seriously—and the "simple" fact of being a woman means you'll have difficulty being taken seriously anyway. When the TV show Buffy the Vampire Slayer was in first run (1997–2003), I found so much meaning in it. Among the wonderful writing was this advice from Buffy to her younger sister when Buffy was preparing to sacrifice her life to save the world: "The hardest thing in this world is to live in it."

As you're my daughter, Evie, you won't have an easy time in your life. But a psychotherapist once told me I had great courage in carrying on despite my health problems. I never thought of myself as courageous; what choice did I have but to carry on once I woke up in the morning? I hope you have courage as well. (And the good health that I didn’t, although, as a woman, you are disproportionately at risk for autoimmune diseases like the one I have.) But be warned: It's possible that nobody will thank you for your courage, or even recognize its presence in you. And as I don't believe in a heaven where your soul will be comforted when you die, I can't say, "Hang in there, because you'll get your just reward in the afterlife if not in this life." I can't offer you much comfort at all, as it happens, not being familiar with either the physical or emotional varieties. But I can suggest that you look for "kindred spirits" in past lives—such as that of Jane Carlyle—and in present friends. Finding such people is perfectly achievable and is an expectation from life that you should develop. People with unrealistic expectations find life bewildering and disappointing.

I promised to tell you how to handle the rage of being a woman in a society that will: repress and mistreat you; assume you're incompetent because you're a woman (whereas men are assumed to be competent), thereby forcing you to be super-competent; and call you a slut, a whore or a dyke when you defy them. Society encourages men to express their anger, but not women. Yet we have the emotion—especially if we have a chronic illness; what do we do with it?

A newspaper article I have at hand says that people who hardly ever express anger are at increased risk for migraine headaches, cancer, irritable bowel syndrome, Crohn's disease and immune system disorders. (As an aside, my parents forbade me to show that I was angry with them. I first learned this lesson during toilet-training. But then, I also had a baby-sitter who wasn't the most patient of mortals, especially when it came to toilet-training. I used to have a recurring nightmare about the subject that I have no trouble at all remembering.)

I'm sorry, my dearest; in the end, I have no good answer to the problem of handling your emotions and your rage. I cannot recommend my method, learned on the fly—repression and depression.

As you're a woman, the world cannot be your oyster. But neither can you be its doormat. Refuse to let people impose upon your civility, patronize you, impair your dignity, or try to take over your life (watch out for control freaks and parasites). As inspiration, study the lives of 12th-century queen and mould-breaker Eleanor of Aquitaine; 19th-century writers Charlotte Brontë, George Eliot and Caroline Norton; and 20th-century writers Edith Wharton, Rebecca West and Martha Gellhorn. As awful warnings, study the lives of Mary Queen of Scots, Elizabeth Smart and Simone de Beauvoir, all of whom made fools of themselves for men.

I refused to go down the roads that Elizabeth Smart and Mary Stuart took. And lest you think that being in love is a mystical, transcendental experience that must be surrendered to, I refer you to anthropologist Helen Fisher, whose seminal work Anatomy of Love (1994) discussed the brain chemistry of attraction. It seems that sexual attraction/being in love is simply a neurochemical trick played by "Mother Nature" to get us to reproduce.

I emerged from my first love affair—with a French-Canadian man with an undiagnosed bipolar disorder who broke off all contact with me when he was in a depressive downswing (he later tried to make amends, but the damage was done)—with two "gifts": the knowledge that I could conquer being in love if I had to, because I'd been forced to learn how; and a distrust of passion when I met it again. Which wasn't very often; so many of the men I met didn't smell good. (There's a literature on how women's sense of smell contributes to their finding a mate, and also how being on the Pill changes a woman's sense of smell.) So I grew into a middle-aged woman who sat down on her sexuality because expressing it always led to disaster. I concentrated on my career as a journalist and an editor, since my passion for the English language was safer to indulge. I felt obliged to be super-successful in my career to "make up for" all the women in my family (including Great-Aunt Daisy, who'd wanted to be a journalist) who never had a chance to have careers or go to university. I looked for talented writers or editors whom I could mentor. (If you, my Evie, had inherited my language skills, I would have taught you all I know.)

Before I went to France on vacation in 2004, I re-read the wonderfully written biography of the brilliant Queen Eleanor of Aquitaine by Marion Meade in preparation for visiting Eleanor's grave in Fontevrault Abbey. The sight of her tomb effigy brought an unexpected uprush of emotion and tears. I wanted to stroke her dead face, carved into stone. I wanted to say to her, "Even now, eight centuries after you lived, women are still hoping—and failing, usually—to find their equals as life partners. I feel I understand you, impertinent though I may be. I wish you could know that your life is still making a difference in the world."

On that same trip to France, I was unable to relax my grip on my "dangerous emotions" long enough to seize an opportunity for unexpected sexual passion. (I was also, as usual, tired to death. Exhaustion tends to stifle spontaneity.) Up to that time, I'd never been able to form a successful long-term romantic relationship, and my 50th birthday was coming up fast, so the new "failure" in France proved especially dispiriting. I later wrote a story inspired by it, but someone who read it shortly afterwards told me that the end of it (the coda) was "dangerous" (i.e., that what I'd wanted to do as a follow-up to my "adventure" was unsafe). I've deleted the coda.

Evie, you may never find your intellectual, social, sexual and sense-of-humour equal (or at least, not all in the same person, despite the fact that Catherine the Great of Russia did find her equal in Prince Grigory Potemkin.) You shouldn't even be looking for "the love of your life." He—or she; I shouldn't assume you'll be heterosexual—is a mythical creature. Romantic literature and modern popular culture have made up this concept and this person. A millennium's worth of romantic propaganda bears down on modern girls: "You're nobody till somebody loves you; you're incomplete/immature/not 'settled down' without a partner; being alone is the worst thing that can happen to you." I remember, in my forties, being asked by elderly cousins when I was going to "settle down"—i.e., get married—as if holding a job and an apartment in the same city for decades were evidence of instability. ("Karen Bennett, the human loose cannon!")

I'm still crying as I write, but managing to smile now, because writing this has done so much to assuage my griefs. If I believed in God, I'd say "God bless you." So you'll have to get along with just "Bless you." I expect you'll be able to—get along, that is—because the women on both sides of my family are strong. However, as you won't be an air force brat, as I was, you won't have learned stoicism the way military kids do. A boss once told me that I'd get through my father dying of cancer because I was "tough" (she knew I'd already survived losing a job through downsizing), and I was astonished. And years later, several people told me I was "tough" for enduring so many eye operations over so many years. I don't think of myself that way, you see; being a highly sensitive person, as I found out I was many years ago through the work of author and psychologist Elaine Aron, doesn't seem complementary with being tough—and I even have trouble with being thought of as "strong," as someone else has called me, because I know that I don't stand up for myself when it comes to bullies.

I also expect that you're wonderful, so there's no need to patronize you with what my dad once told me when I had to go alone to represent the Bennetts at the funeral of my mother's brother (the other Bennetts had to attend the funeral of somebody on my dad's side of the family): "Do us proud." It's important to be told that you're wonderful, and unusually bright and gifted, when you're a teenager; otherwise you'll grow up, as I did, wondering why you don't fit in, lacking adequate belief in yourself and the confidence to "go for broke" in your life—the only life you'll get. (There were other things going on when I was a teenager that contributed to my anxieties, and I won't be confiding them here as they were particular to me and won't apply to you.)

Occasionally I read the biography of someone now dead (e.g., the writers Douglas Adams, Martha Gellhorn and Lillian Hellman) and, as I close the book, say, "I wish I could have known them." I think of this letter in a reverse fashion—as my way of saying to you: I wish I could have known you. And most of all, my Evie, I wish you could have been.

I'm not sure what the small blue flowers growing at the feet of the daffodils were—possibly campanula or, most appropriately of all, forget-me-nots. Here's a close-up of them.