It is never too late to be what you might have been.

Recently, when I was looking for inspirational quotes I saw “It is never too late to be what you might have been” by George Eliot. 

What a wonderful way to say what I had been telling my clients for years.

I used many sentences, but It takes a true genius to put thoughts into words so amply. 

 I heard the name of course, but I was not familiar with the works of George Elliot. I did a research and was surprised how pioneering and current the life of a woman of 19th century seemed to me. 

 Mary Ann Evans was born in 1819, 200 years ago.  This woman was an accomplished editor and critic, she wrote poems, did translation work and was very interested in matters of spirit and religion.  

She was a rebel with a spirit of fire. When Mary Ann Evans encountered George Henry Lewes, who was already married in an open marriage!!, she realised that she met her soulmate. 

George was a philosopher and literary and theatre critic. Gregarious and full of ideas, he was witty and interested in the same subjects Mary Ann was including religious scepticism. 

Mary Ann and George started to live together and considered each other husband and wife. 

 The union was inspirational for Mary Ann, it gave her stimulation to become a writer. But instead of writing under her own name, she decided to have a male persona instead. George Eliot was a writer who could create thought provoking works, not the sweet romantic novels women expected to do at that time. 

George Eliot writing was realistic, psychological, different and represented women’s rights and position in society. George Eliot was a success. 

 Mary Ann Evans and George Lewes on the other hand were a scandal and shunned by the society. However, when George Eliot’s true identity was revealed and the couple were introduced to Princess Louise, the daughter of Queen Victoria, they were socially accepted and their home became a meeting place for writers and intellectuals. 

After George Lewes’s death Mary Ann married John Cross, 20 years her junior. Another controversial story that ended with John’s suicide attempt at their honeymoon in Venice and Mary Ann’s death upon their return to London. 

Wow! What a woman!

I found that she lived in Wimbledon, about 13 minutes away from the flat I lived in my early thirties and buried in Highgate cemetery. The area I lived in 2015. For some reason I find this fascinating, that I walk the same streets and breath the air of the same city as some of the most accomplished people on earth. 

George Eliot was and still is an inspiration. The woman who was not afraid to live the life she wanted to live regardless of the norm, the society, the family even.

Her brother did not accept her relationship with George Lewes and only build a bridge with her when she married John Cross. 

 The woman who was successful and eventually accepted by all even the Royal Family. 

 What about you, are you willing to fight for your true soul and identity? 

 It is never too late to be what you might have been!!

Yours Oksana xx