You Gotta Rip the Band-Aid Off, or Didn't We Almost Have It All?

When I was a small girl…

I thought I was the next up and coming lemonade stand entrepreneur, with  candy bracelets and candy necklaces as my secret weapons of mass appeal.
I thought the movie The Fly documented a true event and shrieked every

time a fly would land on me. I still do.

I broke my leg falling from the neighbor’s monkey bars, after attempting to outshine her heart-stopping, awe-inspiring fabulous dismount.

The art of pleading must have been instinctive, for a five-year-old, for I begged my mom to take me with her when she left.

           

When I was a young girl…

I voraciously consumed books from the library and discovered it was possible to escape the ordinary, the mundane, the tragic, the hypocrisy for five minutes, for an hour, for however long was necessary.

Acceptance from a group of people who believed birthdays and holidays were evil became a lifeline, became hope.

I asked my dad why he didn’t care for me anymore.

I said boys were icky, and secretly wished my glasses weren’t so thick, and that I knew how to make my hair pretty like the girls at school.

When I was a teenage girl…

I discovered the new life with my mom held more freedoms, and more fears, than I had anticipated.
My reintroduction to celebrating holidays was a smashing success.

I had to change schools for the third time in my middle school career, and found friends that ended up staying with me to this very day.

I thought I would never have children, because I’d surely screw them up with my mommy issues, and daddy issues, and religion issues, and whatever other issues I could assign myself at the time.

I wished I was thin and willowy like my two best friends, and not the size 6 I was.

Mrs. Woodbury, a senior Contemporary English teacher, gave me hope and believed in me, and my writing, even though I couldn’t turn assignments in on time, or at all, to save my life.

I thought my high school boyfriend would be the love of my life.

When I was a twenty-year-old woman-child…
                I thought making money was more important than going to school.
                I had aspirations of becoming an actress.

                Living with a man-boy boyfriend, and a man-boy roommate was both

entertaining and frustrating, and oh-so economical. Why was there NO food in the house before I moved in??

I knew I had more to offer than what was required of me as a Hot Foods girl at Bel-Air.

When the pregnancy test turned pink, tears seeped from my eyes, and manic laughs escaped my lips, as I sat on the bathroom floor and stared at the plastic stick.

I was a woman-child no more.

When I was a twenty-five-year-old woman…

I knew I had more to offer than what was required of me as a Call Center Representative. And was going to night school to prove it.
I thought my man-boy would NEVER grow up. Never Never Land, anyone?
Having cried when I’d found out I was not having a girl, I never imagined

having a boy would be that much FUN!

Bugs and dirt, cars and trains, The Incredibles and Finding Nemo, pirates and cops and sirens. These were my life and my sonnets and my daily directions and my heart was open to it all.

I knew that even though my mom couldn’t force her frail body to chase after her four-year-old grandson, those precious, quiet moments when she’d read to him at night were sweeter and more holy than any marathon romp.

I learned how to be a nurse. And therefore thought I could be one indefinitely.

I sang to my mom as she slipped from this world with a smile on her lips.

Now that I am a thirty-year-old woman…

I know I have more to offer than what is required of me as an Engineering Designer.

I realized that, yes, my man-boy had to grow up, but I also had to stop expecting everything to be on my terms. And once I did, my man-boy became a man, and a husband, and a partner.
A barbell became one of my dearest friends and most trusted confidantes.
I made a commitment to write. I constantly struggle with that commitment.
Discovering that I was NOT a natural teacher, I began to pray that I would be

able to help my son through school, through those formative, aggravating, inspiring years of learning and adaptation, and be able to show him the wonders of this world and how he fits into it. I pray every day.
I fight for balance and fear I may never find it.
I fear waking one day to find life has passed me by and I’d have nothing to

show for it. No journeys, no accomplishments, nothing but a commonplace existence.
I fear turning thirty-five and still having nothing to show for it.

I don’t know what I want to be. One minute I want to quit my job and write. The next minute I want to jump headfirst into school and become a scientist. Then I think I’m neglecting my family and I need to stay home and be with them, be Mom and Wife and make everything comfortable and cozy. Balance is elusive and I am forever chasing it. I can’t possibly have it all, can I? 

I realize this is not a literary piece. I just had to jump back in or else continue to lose ground in my fight to stay in Blogland. I do think I may explore more non-fiction narrative in the future. That might help me continue writing, when I’ve got blocks on the fictional front. Stay tuned. And thanks for reading.