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I can either die a repentant madwoman or live as an unrepentant madwoman.

It was always going to be this way.

Sometimes it feels like it's in my lineage.

My great aunt was committed as a "schizophrenic" when there was no clear definition of what that meant. She killed herself after the institutions closed, but still escaped them several times when it was the established practice. She was an artist who struggled with anorexia.

Her younger sister, my grandmother, lived in a state of social unawareness that I have come to accept is deeply present in me, though I will not be able to ascertain if the cause is the same. She married because it was done and had two sons who were scarred by that marriage. She possibly never loved her husband before they divorced. She did not enjoy or have an interest in cooking and likely did not fit into the mold of 'housewife' very gracefully due to her eccentricities. She may have been a lesbian. We don't know- she never talked about it.

Such is my father's side of the family.

On my mother's side, my great great grandmother left her family and "ran away to live in Cairo". Whatever that means. I think about her a lot. She was gorgeous, or that is what I believe; there is a lovely embroidered portrait of her as a young woman in the late 1800s. It's mine, but I can't have it in my possession because it's across the Atlantic and I doubt it travels easily.

My mother does not conduct herself like a madwoman, but she gives me knowing looks and alludes to seeing herself in me. Some of that is likely standard mother-daughter connection, but I can never know how far it goes. I know we've had similar struggles in connecting to others and understanding our own identities in the world. I know I suppress. I imagine she does too.

I think most women in the past century of my family's history were/are likely some kind of mad. I feel as though I'm mad. I feel as though I'm bursting at the boundaries of myself. I'm 30. Nearly 31. I spent the past decade trying to subdue myself. Sometimes for my own safety. I don't regret these effort - I feel as though I did not compromise much in that decade; I had much to learn. It was necessary to take a back seat in the situations I found myself in. It isn't anymore. I only wish this shift didn't happen during the years that should mark my child rearing era. What will I birth? Who will I birth?

Good luck, everyone.