‘My ability to have a child is leaving me’

Tracee Ellis Ross It is still the perfect girlfriend.

A recent episode of the We Can Do Hard Things Podcast by Pattern beauty founder. He discusses life at 50 and the importance of finding purpose beyond a romantic relationship.

“I have been single for a very, very long time. She said that she has had many amazing experiences, but no one stuck to her pan.

Ross claims that she is not restricted by her romantic solitude and has the opportunity to enrich her love circle uniquely.

“As a consequence, I get the opportunity to curate and nurture my family, my chosen circle of family. I didn’t realize the gift until I was older.

She has had to deal with the idea that she is single and childless, making her feel like a burden to her friends. However, she finds some humor in the fact that her only purpose is to be with a man or to have children.

“We return to the same model we bought, and not only are they selling it but we are also feeding it. It’s everywhere. You might not realize it, but you may believe it. This is the best bit of news. That’s because my job is to make choices. Nothing has to do with me, but what makes me smile, makes it feel good, makes us feel confident, makes us feel empowered, and makes us feel smart. All of these things. It’s really about how I might appear, so that my life can mean something as a chosen mother who then gets to have children and be a mother.

Ross said that projections can be difficult to see when you add in the subtleties of being Black woman living in America.

Everything falls into that message. If you’re Black, then there’s another blah. Blah. Blah. Blah. There are many versions of this. “But that’s like an overarching idea as a women,” she stated.

Ross believes that this message can also have an impact on platonic relationships, beyond the romantic events.

“And then all your friendships will fall into that same hole.” If you aren’t chosen for a man, you will fill that God-sized hole with a friend and you will become your best friend. Then it gets really tangled up and real confusing,” she stated.

She also spoke out about how she embraces the unknown at the end her reproductive years.

“I’m also going though perimenopause. For my whole life, I have been tied to a very regular cycle. I am very connected with my body. If I knew I was ovulating, I would feel all the emotions that go with it. And all that is gone. I’m 50. “And here I am now in this open space, allowing for the bubbling up whatever may be there,” she said.

Ross said that this has forced her to examine her relationship to femininity and redefine what it means for her to be a woman outside of the patriarchal norms she was taught.

“My body is becoming a foreign land to me. It doesn’t feel like home or safe. And I don’t know how to manage, control, or fight the external binary narrative about the patriarchy that has haunted us all my adult lives. What is causing me to lose my fertility? Or is it my womanhood? Or is it both? Because I was programmed by the water that we all swim in and the water we are all served, I must fight to keep my truth. I feel more fertile with creativity and full of power than ever before. She cited an excerpt from her journal to illustrate this point.

“I’m just trying to understand what that means. My ability to have children is slipping away. However, she stated that while I disagree that this is what fertile means and I don’t believe that that’s what women means.

Ross is now able to acknowledge that her space in life as a woman doesn’t include her ability have kids or get married. This realization she thanks the transgender communities.

“The freedom that the expanding around gender has given me, and knowledge that is being shared to us by the trans community, is like saying, “Oh my God! Thank you!” Thanks for finally unpacking something I didn’t have the ability to because it was given to me in a cultural that saw it in such limited terms,’ she said.

“But it is an inexplicable injustice that is imposed on all of humanity. This random construct about gender is what informs one pathway. When I pull back from it, I’m like, ‘That’s a joke. I wonder who did it? You know what? I’m just like, ‘Who did that? That’s so silly,'” she said.

Ross embraces her nurturing nature, even though she does not have a husband nor children.

“I tell people this all the time. I am a wonderful mother. And I love mothering. And it’s been hard for me to claim that. In a world where I don’t have the thing that says…,” she trails off, later adding that she is ultimately thankful for her inquisitiveness surrounding the topic.

“I’m grateful to be able to look at it with curiosity instead of heartbreak. And the heartbreak does come up, and I get to hold that gently and lovingly and then say, remind myself, ‘I woke up every morning of my life and I’ve tried to do my best, so I must be where I’m supposed to be.’”

You want lifestyle and wellbeing news delivered straight to your inbox Sign up here for Yahoo Life’s newsletter.