You do it before you’ve even started wanting the thing you want.
You want to take that drawing course that means you’d have to steal from the grocery budget. You’d love to go back for that degree in French Literature. You’d prefer to spend the money on that cruise down the Nile rather than the roof that isn’t actually leaking yet. You’d love to keep the wee hoose you write in all to yourself, instead of turning it into a gym for your family. And before any of that (your basic human desires that you are allowed to have) has been said out loud, you’ve already built the case around it. The drawing course could give you more of a connection with your artist daughter. The cruise would be something your husband would really like. You worked really hard to have a room of your own.
”Really, honestly, my desire is justified and I’m not asking for something that I shouldn’t.”
Nobody asked you. Nobody put you on the stand for cross-examination. Nobody requested the receipts, and yet you produced them anyway, in advance, and you’ve been doing it so long that the fact you’re doing it no longer registers as pretty damn weird.
Pretty damn weird that you don’t allow yourself to just want what you want. Wanting for the sake of wanting is allowed.
But, the justifications are the taxes you feel you must pay for the privilege of wanting.
I write my pages every morning and one Sunday in July I wrote that Mark was trying to make plans for the day. I wrote how annoyed I was because I had decided to do absolutely nothing, and that I did not have to explain or justify why I didn’t want to do anything.
That was the sentence I actually wrote…. “I do not have to explain it.”
And then, in the very next line, I explained and justified. Just like I always do. I wrote that when Mark has a full day of watching football games, I never tell him I want to do things, or ask him to do my stuff instead of what he has decided to do.
There it is. The evidence presented, in a case nobody had brought against me. I wasn’t even arguing with Mark. I was arguing with myself. To some inner jury that gathers to hear my moaning.
I am calling this the Justification Tax. It goes into the Midlife Heroine’s Dictionary this week, and I would rather like to see what you do with it.
Here is what I think, and I hope some of the submissions challenge me on this. Most of us mistake the tax for good manners. We call it being considerate, or being realistic, or not making a fuss. But a want that arrives pre-justified has already been argued down and dismissed before anybody else gets a vote. Nobody has to refuse you. You did it first, on their behalf, for free.
Why do we do this?
Perhaps having a want worth justifying is itself a privilege, and plenty of women are not choosing between the trip and the roof but between the roof and the electric. That’s right. And that’s a better essay or story than the one I wrote above.
WHAT I AM ASKING FOR
Something of yours, essay or fiction, with an exploration of the Justification Tax. It does not have to use those words. The theme is only a doorway for ideas, not a brief to be followed exactly,. The best pieces from last quarter (about The Threshold Guardian) were the ones that took the concept somewhere I hadn’t thought of.
I read every submission.
WHAT HAPPENS IF YOU WIN
Your piece runs in The Story Room Magazine on 1 November with your byline and bio. The two prize winners get $150 each, one in fiction and one in non-fiction, and each gets an hour at The Author’s Table where I read her piece aloud on a Substack Live and then talk with her about how she made it. Runners-up take $50, up to two in each category. After that, we move the quarterly theme, the pieces, and all the people into an hour and a half in The Story Room Salon.
Submission is free and open to everyone, paid subscriber or not. You only have to be a paid subscriber to receive the cash, if you aren’t you get a subscription as compensation instead. Everyone who submits gets her name in the issue and a free seat at the Salon.
THE PRACTICAL PART
The submission window opened on Monday for the women who attended the Salon. It’s open to everybody now, and it closes on Sunday 4 October at midnight Eastern. Issue 02 publishes on 1 November. The Salon follows on Sunday 15 November, 5pm UK, noon Eastern.
Up to 3,500 words, but short is also welcome, flash included. Fiction or non-fiction.
If you would rather read than write this quarter, the issue arrives on 1 November and the Salon is the room where we argue about it. Membership is $9.95 a month, or $90 a year. (Join us below).
And before you go, one for the comments…
What is the last thing you wanted without building a case for it first?
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I read every submission.