One of the things which can make you a responsible adult is acknowledging that shit has happened, you might have some trauma and seeking professional help for said trauma. I am fortunate enough to be responsible in that fashion if I lack in other ways. As I often share I am a work in progress.

Some of the things I’ve been unpacking and working through is my connection to a system I was not designed for, one which does not serve me. I’ve often complained of life being me when I was so ‘disconnected’ to the society around me. As I’ve made progress I understand that is not wholly accurate.

I designed a version of myself that was counter to all that was socially acceptable. A part of it was gender, race, sexual preferences, intelligence. A person such as myself is not always met with warm welcome. It is not a flex though, not really. It was what I told myself was needed. It was a way to divest myself from the acceptance I thought I was not deserving. It was not a very healthy way of coping. The method actually set me up for additional failures as time walked along, but it is what I did. What I didn’t account for and what I had zero way of knowing back then is that it would lead me to issues in adulthood. I was unaware that without additional work I was setting myself up for failure.

I held onto the armor of the misfit convinced that I was unable to alter the world around me. I would find the center that I craved, the attention and convince myself that it was by my own design. In a sense it was designed by Nicole, that was not the best possible outcome though.

In crafting the woman who I was, I never explored how and if that other version of me could navigate the streets.

As I’ve done some therapy and recently some writing I had to admit to myself that I was a version of Serena Joy Waterford and that was ugly. I mean that chick is…….

I mean on the surface we are not similar, but we share some core flaws one of them being unwitting pawns of patriarchy.

Season 6 of The Handmaid’s Tale isn’t just setting up the next show called the Testaments, it is exposing to the audience who these characters are despite who viewers might want them to be. I might even do a breakdown of June in the future but today’s post is me admitting to being like Serena Joy.

Where she and I met was our refusal to admit that while we were the opposite of the picture of what patriarchy said we should be, there are segments of who we are as a person, as women who found comfort in being chosen.

We watched Serena last season on a very limited basis experience the life of a Handmaid. She found herself free of the ritual rape portion of the experience, hooray I guess. She did experience what it was like to lose her autonomy. She experienced being 2nd class as a woman and unworthy of recognition by those who had no emotional investment in her like Fred Waterford might have once upon a time. She experienced almost losing her child. She of any of the Gilead women should have a clear understanding of what is at stake.

Sure you might argue she is following her faith, yet to do that one has to ignore that her faith is attention and proximity to power. She saw herself as someone who could change the world. She DID change the world. In that alteration she lost the spotlight she craved. She struggled with the reality that the world she endorsed so that she would be the center of it, didn’t reward her. It didn’t acknowledge all she gave up for it to happen, it didn’t give her a baby. She put in all that hard work and got nothing. That is not where we are similar though.

Serena and I are – we fell for it – twins. We spent a lot of time being exceptional and creating our our lanes. We were head and shoulders above the masses and we threw it all away because we fell in love and the men we loved were flawed. The flaw just so happened to be connected to their own traumas and they were unable to see how small they were in a world where the surface and front facing versions of who they are fits the societal mold of success….almost.

She and I both allowed the concept of love and being loved and chosen to increase our value in a quest to teach the masses. Teach what? How to be the opposite of who we settled to be because we chose stunted men. Those who can’t do teach right?

My awakening came unexpectedly. Serena’s was obvious…if you are not blinded by love but at times that is who we are Ray Charles saying I love you.

I don’t have the luxury of Serena Joy to be a yt woman with blonde hair. I don’t have the luxury of living in a fictional universe even if that fiction is looking pretty real these days. Serena as of this post is running away from her bad choices. I don’t run from mine.

Instead of leaning into what is natural to me, I made the specific decision to set that aside. I thought that I could have the model – yet still explain to others why it is not necessary – and the dick – and the position of not having to do the day to day ‘heavy’ lifting. That is never how it works. For every action…

I wanted the vizion of perfect patriarchy with him as an accessory and never gave space that using the oppressors tools simply built a different prison. Letting go of that fantasy/fallacy has me better off these days but it doesn’t erase what was. I was a part of the problem.

The lessons of THT will play out both on screen and off – this is a 2nd Trump Presidency after all. Nicole’s lessons play out and show out just a little differently.