Dorit Palvanov

Transcript

through the lace of my veil i see it the long isle the family and friends who've gathered the handsome man waiting for me at the end of it and my dreamy future as his wife i'm walking slowly taking it all in my father's to my left looking proud and happy my mother is to my right looking regal and perfect as usual her hair is immaculate her makeup is impeccable her skin is glowing she's wearing a gorgeous coral dress and she's smiling from ear to ear but i know that smile it's the smile she's practiced and perfected over the years the smile of the joker the

smile of an academy award-winning actress the truth hidden behind it like the lace on my veil i will not become my mother i reach the end of the aisle my father gently kisses me on the cheek and then i turn to her i'm a little afraid to look into her eyes i'm afraid of what i'll see i don't want to wake up from this fantasy but like a magnet my eyes are drawn to them i can't help it she is my mother after all our eyes lock and as i suspected her eyes say way too much in a flash the magic of the moment is

dashed with the story her eyes tell i'm sorry baby life is hard for a woman there is no happiness here for you to her credit she never actually said the words but i definitely heard them i've heard them just as clear as i've heard the screech of the medicine cabinet door opening every night at 12 55 a.m for as long as i can remember my body would wake up as if on cue from the creek of her bedroom door opening her sleepers dragging her down the hall she's reaching for the sleeping pills again to knock herself out of her misery i watched my mother give

her power away and i had accepted the fact that it is hard for a woman to live you see i come from a family where women are expected to obey and play by the rules it's like there is this invisible baton passed down from generation to generation from mother to daughter like a sad life script teaching us that once married a woman must surrender herself and her happiness of course to me it would never happen because i would marry a loving man he would support me and our children would grow up in a loving home filled with joy laughter and happiness because i would not

end up like my mother but the legacy was in my blood like a virus that hijacks your lungs it consumed me a decade later i mother myself to three daughters it's 6 p.m bath time i scoop up my 6 month old baby girl from her high chair and we're headed to the bathroom her two sisters are trailing me we're singing baby shark for the millionth time and to the untrained eye this moment it looks like bliss the water is running the girls are splashing we are in a cloud of bubbles i look at my girls their eyes their smiles their joy and then i make

my own gaze in the mirror 33 years old overwhelmed exhausted burnt out overweight sexless the shell of a woman under the lace veil singing baby shark and my smile the truth was i have become my mother that pain i was carrying with me i look at my girls i see their eyes and their hope in their eyes and then i hear it again the voice the virus i'm so sorry baby life is hard for a woman there is no happiness here for you what would the world look like if mothers pass down a different baton to their daughters a baton based on confidence energy and

pleasure instead of a baton of sacrifice guilt and shame how would families look like if women understood themselves so well we could actually teach our men how to understand and support us i've dedicated myself to answering these questions first for myself and now for the women that i work with so that one by one every woman mother and her daughter could lift the lace veil of unhappiness from themselves and truly see the possibilities that exist for them and that is a baton worth passing thank you

Transcript generated from the recording and lightly cleaned. Some names and wording may differ from the spoken speech.