When I Grow Up

“When I grow up, I want to be a librarian!”

“When I grow up, I want to be a teacher!”

“When I grow up, I want to be Miss America!”

“When I grow up, I want to be just like Nancy Drew!  I want to be smart and brave and pretty and have Parker Stevenson be in love with me!”

“When I grow up, I want to be a writer like Carolyn Keene and Laura Ingalls Wilder and L.M. Montgomery and (shhh!  don’t tell my mother!) Judith Krantz and Harold Robbins!”

“When I grow up, I want to be famous and have tons of money and tons of friends and tons of people jealous of (or just notice) me!”

“When I grow up, I want to be a famous writer like Danielle Steel and Johanna Lindsey and Valerie Sherwood!”

“When I grow up, I want to be a wife and a mother and live in a big house with my husband and ten children!”

“When I grow up, I want to have a house in New Hampshire, a house in Florida, a penthouse in New York City, a luxury flat in London and a villa in Italy!”

“When I grow up, I want to be a famous writer like Jude Deveraux and LaVyrle Spencer!”

“When I grow up …”  Oh.  Hello.  I didn’t see you there.  Did you hear all that?  Did you see all that?  Did you feel all that?  My excited, hopeful, shining, star-struck, determined, and maybe even challenging, I-dare-you-to-tell-me-I-can’t expression on a face attached to a head and body practically quivering with passionate, near-panicked energy; energy so intense that upon unclenching my fists and relaxing my face I almost feel exhausted.

I don’t often start any future-thinking sentence with “when I grow up” anymore, because I am grown up.  At least, I think I am.  Well, I’m supposed to be at any rate!  So, in reviewing the wishful-hopeful wants of my younger self:

I am not a librarian, but I love books and one of my life goals is to build a new, state-of-the-art yet back-in-the-day-feeling library for my town.

I am a teacher!

I consider myself smart, I suppose I have been brave on occasion, I can sometimes be called pretty, but Parker Stevenson is just not happening.

I never was and never will be Miss America, but I treasure the memory of the Christmas that I received the whole Miss America costume kit (evening gown, sash and tiara)!  I wore it and practiced smiling and waving (elbow-elbow-wrist-wrist-wrist) as I walked regally down the stairs.

I am a writer, but not in the style of Carolyn or Laura or L.M. or (it’s okay if my mother knows this) Judith or Harold.

I’m not famous and I don’t have tons of money; I do have tons of friends; people have been jealous of me (I only know this because they told me; still can’t figure out why!); people have noticed me for both the “right” and the “wrong” reasons.

I’m not a famous writer – at least not yet.  But I don’t want to be compared to Danielle Steel, or even Johanna Lindsey, Valerie Sherwood, Jude Deveraux and LaVyrle Spencer (all of whom I admire); I want my writing merits to be my own, thank you very much!

I’m not certain about the husband piece anymore … almost been there; almost done that … I know for certain, however, that I do NOT want 10 children!!!  I mean, OH MY GOD, right????  What was I thinking????

I STILL want to have my own house in New Hampshire and in Florida, a penthouse (with a roof garden, please!) in New York City, a luxury flat in London (with a garden as well, please!), and a villa in Italy (with a fully stocked wine cellar and plenty of guest bedrooms for my tons of friends).  My vision board reflects the house in New Hampshire, which will be a beautiful, sunny cottage surrounded by oodles of gorgeous, brilliantly-colored flowers and will feature a big, four-season sun porch and plenty of room for entertaining!

And even though I don’t use the phrase “when I grow up” to start a sentence anymore, I still love to feel it when I consider the vision of my future – and my present! - because I’ve learned that all that uncomfortably delicious energy can make things happen!  But if I did use “when I grow up” to start a sentence, it would look like this:

When I grow up, I want to love and be loved unconditionally and I want my friends and family to love and be loved unconditionally.  That’s all it would take to set everything else into motion and complete the amazing jigsaw puzzle that is our perfectly connected lives.

So, come on.  Stand up.  I mean it!  Stand up!  I’ll wait …  Thank you!  Good job!!  Now, repeat after me: “When I grow up …”  Doesn’t that feel awesome???

Reflections – Part 3

  “Friendship!  Friendship!  Just the perfect blendship!”  As an elementary schooler, that song was one of dozens I learned in music class with Miss Ward (who would become the first of my 3 stepmothers, but that’s another reflection!).  I loved that song, but not as much as I loved my friends!  Micki  and Danny Myshrall, Julie and Glen Smith, Gretchen (can’t remember her last name), Lori Stark, Mario Cometti, DJ Deniston, Helen Pappas, Karen Nartonicola, etc., etc. … I had a slew of friends and a never-ending stream of activities to enjoy with them during my elementary years.

  Whether it was simply playing on our jungle gym (the “it” place of our neighborhood), sleepovers at Julie’s, Micki’s or Lori’s, bicycling around the block, walking to the park just down the hill (it had a bigger playground!), putting on plays in my livingroom (the dining room was our backstage area), playing store in the play shed out back or holding neighborhood “carnivals” to support McDonald’s charities, we were nearly inseparable.  Those friendships continued into 6th grade – junior high school!!  wow!!! – and I truly believe they’d be in place today if my parents hadn’t separated right after school let out after 6th grade. 

My mother’s sisters and brothers came with a big truck and a couple station wagons one Saturday early in July of 1977 and moved Mom, my two brothers and me to New Hampshire.  As I recall – it’s all such a blur – we kids had only a few days’ notice; likely so that we wouldn’t have time to worry about it since there was so much to do.  It seemed more like an adventure: summer in New Hampshire with all our cousins would be a blast!  The reality was less of an adventure and the toll was a high one to pay.  From my 11-year-old point of view, I lost my father, all my friends and my cat, Tiger, in one fell swoop.

What I know now is that the effect of those losses was a profound fear of attachment that saw me right through my high school years.  My “friends” were the people I sat next to in class.  After school and weekend hours were spent reading books, finding books to read at the library or second hand book store, writing, and listening to music.  Books, writing, and music became my constant companions; they were always with me – could always be with me … the chance of losing them was minimal to none and so they were safe.

I graduated with over 300 other students from high school.  I knew those I shared homeroom and other classes with by name, for the most part, but I didn’t know them and they didn’t know me.  I’ve met some of them on occasion in recent years and still can recall their first names – sometimes even their second names … I smile and say “hello” and tell them I hope life is treating them well.  And I wonder where – and how – Micki, Danny, Lori, Gretchen, Julie, Glen, Helen, Mario, Karen and DJ are.

Reflections – Part 2

  College.  I’d always known I’d go to college and for what – writing!  It was merely a question of where I’d go.  I was courted by USC, BC, BU, UFM … I considered all of them, plus SUNY Purchase and others … But the place I really needed to go was a college in Wisconsin which, oddly, I can’t recall the name of.  At that time it was the go-to college for serious writers and I was that.  I remember meeting with recruiters at a hotel suite in Manchester.  I met all the qualifications academically.  They’d reviewed and accepted my application.  But the price tag … It was twenty-five years ago and I remember the look on my mother’s face when they said how much we would be responsible for after financial aid and the multiple scholarships I’d been awarded: $17,000.00.  Per year.  At that point in time it may as well have been $100,000.00.  It wasn’t possible.  To say I was disappointed was a vast understatement.

  Given financial constraints, I “settled” for PSC … It was the least expensive of my state’s colleges.  Since my parents couldn’t offer me any assistance and I’d never taken a loan before and had no credit history, I had to pay my own way.  But the problem, too, was that my parents made enough money that I didn’t qualify for any of PSC’s financial aid packages.  I had my scholarships, which were contingent upon completing my first year successfully, and that was it.  I managed to get a loan for my first year and thought I was all set until the day I returned from Christmas break.  There was a note on my dorm room door stating I had to go to the financial aid office.  My parents were with me, so off we went, only to be told that an additional $500.00 was due: that day.  My parents couldn’t help me.  I couldn’t help me.  My only recourse was to go back home, go to work, and come back for the fall semester.

  I went home.  I went to work.  I got a job at the lunch counter at Woolworth’s.  I didn’t tell anyone that I had to leave college.  I was so disappointed … so mortified.  One day my grandmother showed up at Woolworth’s because she’d heard I was working there and wanted to see for herself.  She couldn’t believe I wasn’t at college.  I couldn’t, either.

  Once in that work mode, my college plans drifted away.  I needed transportation, so I bought a car.  I actually made friends – not friends like Steven that I only talked to at school; real friends that I hung out with after work.  But I didn’t write for a long time … a really long time.

Reflections – Part 1

  The word reflections has two obvious meanings: 1) the reflections we see when we look in the mirror and 2) the reflections which comprise thoughts on the past, present or future.  Therefore, it’s possible to reflect on one’s reflection.  Love how that works!

  When I reflect on my reflection these days, I find myself reflecting on past reflections … more youthful reflections … reflections that don’t feature wiry white hair sprouting among the auburn-brown; that don’t feature the stamps of time in the form of lines around my eyes and across my forehead; that don’t feature worrisome age spots emerging through the pale skin of my English-Scottish-Irish ancestry.  Not that I want to turn back time, mind you!  I have no desire to do that.  But it’s interesting to consider what has come before; who I have been as opposed to who I am now - and I’m not talking about roles I’ve played!

I reflect on a young woman who dreamed of one day being a wife and a mother to (gulp!) ten children.  Ten!!!  I see her sitting on the bleachers at her high school with her friend Steven during a mutual free period talking about her plans for the future.  Ten children didn’t seem unrealistic (or insane).  Being a wife didn’t seem unrealistic; it seemed, in fact, to be a matter of course … Of course, that would come after graduating from college.

And so comes another reflection … college.  Plymouth State College, now called Plymouth State University.  Mary Lyons Hall sitting in its stately bygone elegance at the heart of the campus; my dormitory, which was officially all girls but unofficially was never without boys, much to the chagrin of the dorm mother and delight of most of the residents.  I recall two football players from the Nashua area I had met at freshman orientation.  On my first night I was sitting on a bench with my first roommate outside of the cafeteria where we had just finished dinner when these two lovely boys came up behind me and each planted a kiss on either side of my neck.  The look on my roommate’s face  – and on the faces of her friends - was priceless!  The guys made sure I’d gotten settled in okay, found out where I was staying and told me where they were staying, gave me big bear hugs and were on their way.  Delicious!  I remember what I was wearing because I felt so feminine and powerful … a lilac, cotton eyelet peasant blouse over jeans and oh-so-popular ankle boots.  For all I was chunky, I felt so pretty and sexy in that moment, which still resides vividly in my memory.  It’s a reflection that even now makes me smile, and feel pretty and sexy.