stories

I spoke to someone that I haven't spoken to in 9 months, and before that, I guess it was a half-turn of the earth around the sun. This woman is a high-school friend.  As she spoke breathlessly of her 75-hour a week work schedule, I felt for her.

Not because I don't believe in hard work, but because there's so much more to life than that.

Even before Emily I had some balance in my life.  Graduate school can consume one if one allows it, and I always found time for window shopping and coffee drinking with  my friends.  We would talk big ideas, but there was balance because we would talk small, demented ideas, too.  We worked with non-native English speakers to improve their writing at free clinics.  We taught half-awake freshman how to craft a thesis sentence.  We wrote endless papers on mundane topics like Shakespeare's use of gloves in his plays.  We studied Middle English and chuckled and bawdy lines from the Canterbury Tales. We cared, we played, we studied--we lived.  

I don't envy her.  I don't envy the designer clothes, the designer car, the suburban house, the husband she never sees.   Part of me thinks I should envy her, as she has so more stuff than I do.  Plus, she's what men want--the poster-child for late 30s and successful:  brainy, skinny, and fabulous.  Then I pause, and realize, no, not necessarily.

The French believe that a woman is not interesting until she turns 40 because it's then when she has a story to tell.  The lines on her face and her imperfections tell her story. 

Say what you want about the French, but they do appreciate women.  Real women.

What story does my acquaintance have--a work story? Vacationing alone stories because the husband doesn't want to go with her?  Changing her views to suite her husband stories because he's very sure it's his way or no way?  

I don't want those stories.

Tucking my daughter in bed, writing, sometimes teaching, helping others, striving to be better, and learning every day feels like living to me. 

It's not a great story.  It's not even a happy story. The daily struggles are overwhelming, but the moments of joy, well, they shimmer like frost in moonlight. 

It's mediocre or fair-to-middlin', but it's my story.

Having some balance, and not having to compromise who I am or what I believe to suit another so as not to be alone, is not a fairy tale, but there's always hope that wishes come true.