When I was 17, I took the city bus to college. I felt so clean…so polished…so groomed.
As I began my day, steps were light and my smile was bright. My hair was glossy and styled to the T.
Skin was glowing— flawless! Blouse and skirt pressed, angora sweater shrugged fashionably around my shoulders. I was armed to save the world.
My goals were modest…when I was 17. I wanted to right the wrongs and reverse the evils.
I would start by taking Social Work. On the first day of my class the words,“Who Am I ?” were scrawled on the blackboard. This is the question I was to answer.
I am still asking that question 60 years later.
I know who I WAS…it’s easy in retrospect to see where you made your mistakes, where you truly triumphed…and what you would, if possible, do differently.
How would things have turned out if I had chosen B over A? I will never know and have given up speculating. What has happened cannot be reversed.
Now, I am facing the prospect of turning 77. The college I attended for two years is now a university. My plans to become a Social Worker with an impressive degree became a diploma — first of all in the school of life and later in Early Childhood Education.
Married at 18…four children for whom I would lose a limb…and four grandchildren…ditto.
I am on my own for the very first time in my life. If I count the dog, well then not really.
However, when the man who has been in your life for 6o of your 77 years dies, leaving you in a state of shock, all the cliches are there; a train without rails…a ship without sails…or plain and simple…a hole in the middle of your heart.
The path is fresh, to be trodden alongside whoever joins me along my way from here forward. Who knows? Not I!
Although today, I dragged myself out of bed — feeling slightly rumpled even after a shower…makeup over the lines and liver spots…thinning hair washed…dressed in my colourful second hand threads — I did accomplish something!
Today I chose to be strong, to get up, get out…and as my old aunty of 96 instructs me… “Look good doing it.”
After a morning of fun at a garage sale and walking on the beach, both activities involving adult children or my dog, I marched on.
I strongly advise physical labour, such as ripping out a dying honeysuckle bush, or making a tea cozy, and then sitting down and writing about it. That’s the best part.
Who knows what my life will be like at 77? No matter what, I will do my best to “Get up, get out— and (maybe!) look good doing it!”
I want that 17-year-old girl in me to be proud of me— well, at least content in the end. |
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