Curtain Call

This experience has been both eye opening and rewarding.  At first, I thought this project would be a vehicle for getting to know Kitten and whomever else I could meet before the end of the project.  Not only have I met these incredible women, but I have also had the opportunity to look at burlesque and the lifespan through an academic lens that I may not have considered before.  The most enjoyable experience would have to be going to GlamourCon with Kitten.  Not only did we see a lot of interesting people, but also it gave me a glimpse of how the business side of being a small time celebrity works.  Being able to observe those interactions and meet people are the most invaluable lessons a new girl could learn.

            My biggest challenge was spending eight hours with my grandmother yesterday.  It is difficult to be faced with the fact that not all people in older adulthood are as selfless and interested in generativity as the ones I’ve spent most of my time with.  Even further, it’s difficult to face the fact that no matter how much effort you may put toward fostering a relationship, some people are unable to attain that.  It was just as difficult to write about the experience, as it was to live it because I want to help her and show her that happy people care about more than just jewelry or their Christmas decorations.  Unfortunately, I know that none of that information will be received or understood in a way that is productive.  I don’t know if I will ever be able to spend time with my grandmother after what happened yesterday.  Not because I am holding a grudge but because I don’t see a way I can make those interactions better for myself without equally hurting her feelings.  I would rather just be cordial and superficial. 

            I plan to continue to spend time with Kitten.  In fact, we have plans to spend time with some other Russ Meyer girls as well.  This project gave me the courage to make a dream and a hope I have had, into a reality.  I doubt I would have been able to blindly approach Kitten to spend time with me, unless I had the project to justify my correspondence.

            I have learned so much about myself and I have had many doors open up to me in this experience.  This project has been a way for me to sort through the different things and opportunities that have been presented to me.  I have definitely struggled with whether or not I was cut out for the normal cultural script of life for women. I don’t know if I’m interested in meeting a guy and putting my dreams on hold to raise kids and be married.  In the spirit of honesty, I would like to meet a guy.  This experience has exposed me to the lives of women who have completely disregarded the cultural script and live happy fulfilling lives.  Sometimes, living off the beaten path is the only way to find the happiness that you desire.  I have come to realize that I may not be cut out for conventional life and that is ok.

            I have learned that I am not that different from the older adults that I have spent time with.  Sometimes it is hard to picture these “old people” were ever young or exciting.  That is the most interesting realization of all.  By spending time getting to know what they were like when they were my age, I can get an idea of what I might be like at 64 or 80.  It has also shown me the consequences that ensue when you mix up your priorities. 

            This assignment has forced me to take an in depth look at what is really important in life and which trajectories will take you to what finish line.  I am eternally grateful for the opportunity and the lessons I have learned over the last 3 months. 

Barbara

My last entry for this project took an interesting turn.  Equally enlightening, in a different and more painful way.  I spent my last eight hours with my grandmother on my mother’s side.  Barbara Elliot, 85 years old, lives in a big house all by herself.  Her 3 daughters each live about an hour away in 3 different areas.  In many ways, knowing Barbara is a lesson in remembering what is important in life.  According to Erikson’s theory of personality development, people are faced with choices in their development.  In the case of my grandmother, it is my opinion that she has made misguided decisions.  Even going back as far as young adulthood, it seems that isolation was chosen over intimacy.  While she has almost always had a husband and fulfilled marital duties, she has no friends, her first husband described her as a “cold fish”, and her 3 daughters are all isolated from her and from each other.  While there is the appearance of intimacy and fulfilling societal duties, when it comes to the relationships, there is no intimacy.  Moving further in time, one is faced with generativity vs. stagnation.  This is where the story gets interesting.  Barbara was a schoolteacher and taught reading to young children for many years.  To hear her pull from her episodic memories of her youth, she was the best teacher in the school and all the other teachers were jealous of her talent.  As we learned from the reading and the lecture on memory, we know that not all episodic memories can be taken for absolute truth. In the sense of her classes and students, she achieved generativity.  She passed on the skill of reading to many children.  Unfortunately, at home, much more emphasis was put collectables and having nice things, rather than having good relationships or teaching her three daughters that they matter.  I would say that her most intimate relationship is with her pet boxer dog, Frosty.  Now, in later adulthood, Barbara measures her ego integrity by the things that she has in her home and how much the things are worth.  She is more outwardly proud of her things more than any of nine grandchildren or 5 great grandchildren.  The week before she and I spend time together, she attended a birthday party for one of her great grandchildren.  One would expect that most of our conversation would have been about what all the children are up to, but instead, the conversation was about Barbara and how great she was in her youth.  I heard all about her experience as a child in the first grade, her experience acting in the school play in college, her experience writing her master’s thesis (and how she got a better grade than her husband).  I also heard all about how gorgeous people said she was when she was young, her experience teaching the first grade, and the fancy restaurant she got some of her Christmas ornaments from.  I believe that this is a prime example of Life Story.  She has composed a certain view of her life that makes it easy for her to establish the identity she wished to have.  Incidentally, the only things I heard about the birthday party, were my cousin’s significant other’s tattoos and how awful they are.  Needless to say, she practices remote grand parenting.    I believe that she has constructed these myths about her life to build up her self-concept and her self-esteem.  This is what my mother has identified as the reason that she has never fully disclosed to Barbara all the emotional damage and painful memories she has of her childhood.  She doesn’t want to jeopardize her mother’s Self-esteem by damaging the truths she constructed for herself.

            It was also interesting to me that much of the episodic memory she shared, were from the reminiscence bump (the time in which the most change was occurring).  Mostly she told me things from her college years, but no stories of her children, another time of great change.

            Needless to say, my time with my grandmother was difficult for me.  The times I tried to share with her, such as my upcoming graduation or my place on the dean’s list, I received a polite nod and “Well, anyways…” and the conversation would return to whatever story she was telling me.  The times we did discuss people in our family, it was negative things.  I actually had to excuse myself and cry in the bathroom after she said some particularly hurtful things about my father.  Even though I wanted to leave, I didn’t.  The reason I didn’t leave was because I didn’t want her to get on the phone as say mean things about me to whoever would listen.