January
17, 2004
So
it's my daughter's birthday. And would have been my
mother's as well. my daughter is now 21 and my
mother would have turned 67.
Where did all those years go? How the heck did i
suddenly become the mother of two adults? How is it
that i can remember being 21 so clearly?
Three weeks after my 21st birthday i got married. i
cried all the way down the rather long church aisle, but
managed to contain myself when i got to the alter.
my father (the one who raised me) was on crutches, having
broken his ankle weeks before while building a new
house. my mother, exactly 20 years older than me,
was already suffering the family affliction of thinning
hair, but had found a hairdresser who could fluff it
nicely for her.
Three weeks before the wedding, she got drunk and beat
me. But i've written about that before - and i still
remain steadfast in my quest to put that part of my youth
behind me. i try now to focus on only the good
things - even if many days remain where i still feel like
a broken bird. The "not good enough" bug
never completely goes away.
But at 21, i thought i was sooo adult. What i really
was, was a very submissive natured person who was
following the grand scheme of someone else (aka parents)
and getting married. Security for me, and then they
didn't have to worry, right? For a lot of years,
they were right. Until i started to mature
and figure out myself a bit better.
my daughter is not in a relationship right now. And
i have to be honest - i'm a bit glad for that. She's
not however. She has now decided that she must be
ugly, since no one seems interested. What she is not
seeing, is that in fact where she lives is the
problem. There's a decided lack of available
partners - and especially partners who like the things she
likes. She's caught between looking like a city girl, and
preferring to live in a small town. When she comes
here to visit, she turns heads - guys like to look!
When she's 'back there', the guys just look
intimidated.
So i do hope she starts to learn that she's not ugly at
all - and that there is a lot of time. i hope she's
not like me. i distinctly remember thinking that i'd
done everything else (traveled, had my own apartment, my
own job - gone to school) so it must be "time"
to settle down and have babies. i was listening to
the parental conditioning and i was so wrong!
i haven't a clue where i was going with all this. i
guess i just wish for her the very best decisions she can
make. And the knowledge that, at 21, the whole world
lies before her and she can use it any way she
wants. i just want her to be happy. :-)
Some
past birthday links:
http://members.tripod.com/~yourcup/eightytwo.htm
(sorry about the pop-ups on this one)
http://www.shadofacts.com/b367.htm
http://www.shadofacts.com/b309.htm
Okay .. off to take some self pics
of body parts ... hopefully they turn out! (all in
the name of 'art' of course. *eg*)
