Notes to Self

by Emilie Pine

what my dad really taught me, despite himself perhaps, is that writing is a way of making sense of the world, a way of processing – of possessing – thought and emotion, a way of making something worthwhile out of pain.

I weighed freedom against love, selfishness against selflessness, presence against legacy.

I can try to have a baby and I can fail every month and be unhappy. Or I can not-try to have a baby and not-fail every month. The total number of children I have had remains the same either way, a big fat zero. But the outcome is totally different. I choose to be happy. This happiness is not perfect, or pain-free. It carries grief within it. It is all the stronger for that.

It is difficult to translate a great love, a great life, into words on a page. It sounds so prosaic – raking leaves, smiling at each other in understanding – but it is in the everyday moments that the tenacity of love, and its depth, are often revealed.

Because, of course, this paranoia, that I am not feminine enough, not desirable enough, not good enough, is the ultimate performance of femininity. This paranoia is a crucial part of how women are policed. And of how we police ourselves.

Sex, it turns out, is meant to be – it is – fun. It does not shake the whole wide world, or revolutionise anyone else’s sexual politics, but this different attitude to my physical self, only fully discovered in my thirties really, has shaken my world and, often, my body. I am very much here.

I myself have never been refused promotion, or sexually harassed at work, so in the main I’m doing fine. But the fact that the absence of these things makes me feel fortunate tells its own story. And the other side of that story is just how often I encounter casual sexism, which for all its superficiality, can be bruising.