Wrestling with the Femme-Forte Persona

I mentioned in an earlier blog “The Unbearable Weight of Independence” that my need to be independent was both a blessing and a curse.  A character trait that I passed on to Vivienne Bernard, the protagonist in my book, “Nonstop Oslo”, as she navigates life and relationships.  This feeling stemmed from the fear of ever being dependent on a man who was less than what he should be.  Less than the husband he should be.  Less than the provider he should be.  Less than the father he should be.  I’ve never wanted to feel stuck in a situation I couldn’t thrive in.  I’ve never wanted to be in a situation where, though I feared for my life, I had no choice but to be there because I was financially dependent.  Like in my mom’s case. I grew up in Haiti with the notion that a man is the head of the household and that he is responsible for the well-being of every single person under his authority.  My father certainly was.  For better or for worse.

So when I came across my then-future husband, he was a figure of authority. The tough guy.  The one that people went to for help and the kind that made criminals tremble in their boots.  The one that made me feel safe when things in Haiti were getting a bit volatile.   The one I ran to when I could no longer bear the overbearingness at home. Not classically handsome, but a figure of strength.  That was quite attractive and reassuring to me. So, I dived in head first. I was 29 years old.  He was the first man I ever made love to. So, I married him.

If you’ve read the book, then you know what happened next.  I was disillusioned. The expectations of a protector and provider came crashing down around me. It was, I suppose, a little bit my fault. My tendency was to make someone bigger than he was.  To blindly trust that he would have my back. I have no idea where this naiveté came from, especially after everything  I’d witnessed growing up and after all the lessons I thought I’d learned along the way.  But here I was, as naive then as I was the day I was born. This would, then, make my need for independence (financially or otherwise) a sort of armor to protect me. To give me the power to bail out if I needed to.  That, then, would be the blessing.  Because it’s one thing to try to put chains on my body, but it’s a totally different thing to put chains on my dreams and aspirations. That was one of the consequences of a marriage that was less than it should have been.

So, what was the impact of this on the children?  In case I hadn’t mentioned it before, I have two beautiful daughters: Laura-Ashley and Stacie Alexandra.  They are the apple of my eye.  I originally thought of naming them Ariel (like the Little Mermaid) and Kirsten.  My husband wouldn’t go for that, so I found a way, years later, to vindicate myself.  And I named Vivienne’s two girls Arielle and Kristen! All jokes aside, life for the girls, who were babies back when I lived with their father, could not have been easy.  I was miserable all the time.  I was angry.  I was tired. I was frustrated.  He had his own frustrations.  I gathered that he didn’t want to be a father.  He didn’t even want to be a husband.  He didn’t want the life that I offered him.  And, it seemed, at times, that he didn’t want me.  I imagine that children absorb all the energy around them, good or bad.  And they were often victims of my mood swings.  And of their father’s. If I didn’t have my poetry as an outlet back then, I really don’t know what would have become of me.  Or of my children.  I am just glad today that I got out when I did. Not unscathed. But alive and thriving.

So, my girls grew up without a father.  He was more of a rumor.  Until he showed up once every blue moon.  But his passage was often fleeting.  Now you see him, now you don’t. That left me with the double role of being mommy and playing daddy too.  Every Christmas, I made sure that the Christmas tree was full of presents, like the one I had growing up.  I never pretended that any of the presents were from Daddy, but it helped to ease my guilt (of not having gifted them with a doting father), knowing that I showered them with gifts and that they felt special.  Gifts, of course, are not meant to fill a void.  But I prayed that mine did.  Over the years, I never allowed my girls to meet anyone that I was seeing.  I didn’t want to create any undue expectations.  They could be here today and be gone tomorrow, so I didn’t want to disrupt my children’s lives. But that avoidance left me empty, unfulfilled, unable to build a family life.  One I thought my girls deserved.

So, when it came to my fantasy… excuse me… Vivienne’s life, I wanted to give her that second chance.  I wanted to give Arielle and Kristen that second chance.  A second chance at love, at happiness, at a family life, at having a devoted father.  Logen was that second chance.  And as it turned out, Vivienne was Logen’s second chance too.  And her children were a welcome addition to his flock of five.

But it wouldn’t be Vivienne (or me), if she had made that journey easy.  She came to Norway and into Logen’s life with all her baggage.  Vivienne had loved Logen all her life, but was still weary of letting herself go completely.  She couldn’t trust that he would be there for her and take care of her.  Or that he would even want to.  After all, her husband whom she had invested so much in hadn’t lived up to his promise.  She couldn’t fathom that Logen would move heaven and earth for her.  That notion was foreign to her, though it was exactly what she’d always wanted.  She couldn’t let go of her independence long enough to feel what it was like to be adored and carried by that man.

Like Logen said to Vivienne purposefully but lovingly:

“I’m afraid that, as self-sufficient as you are, you would never claim what you need from me.  You’d probably convince yourself that you don’t really need anything from me.  You’d just go out there and do it yourself, earn it yourself, buy it yourself.  Even if it killed you.” 

“Come on, Logen, I’m not that bad,” protested Vivienne.

Logen smiled. “You would hunt it, kill it, string it,” he continued… “Skin it, quarter it, cure it..”.

That, my friend, would be the curse.

I recall a girlfriend telling me once,”But, Nadine, you always want to be in control.  It wouldn’t be easy for you to let someone else make decisions for you”.  To which I immediately responded, “That is not true at all.  I long to be dependent.  I’m tired of always having to be the one to make decisions about everything. I’ve done it for years!  Not because I wanted to but because I had to.  I want a break! I want to be mindlessly led.  I just have to be able to trust that this person has my best interest at heart. That’s all.”  So, with that thought, I curbed Vivienne’s over-the-top femme forte persona and made her more receptive to Logen’s need to care for her and more trusting of his love for her.  After all, they all deserved that second chance.

My daughters, Laura & Stacie, and I when they were still adolescents.