Many, many years ago an aging gentleman asked a little girl:
- What will you do when you're grown up?
- I will go to England, she said, completing the phrase with a very willful look.
- And what will you do in England? He continued questioning...
The little girl did not really know.
Many years later on December 13th she crossed the English Channel and landed on the soil she so much dreamed of. 'I'm in England!' she kept shouting all the way, wherever she was going, she did not really know.
A year after that she panicked outside the registry office. 'I want to run away' she thought, but when twenty minutes later she said 'I do', she did not really know.
Years went by the little girl tried so hard to stay a girl, tried to be herself, she did not want to grow up. However, she took up her role as a wife and later as a parent of two dogs, then as a sole provider. She abandoned her dreams, her education, her identity - all for the sake of doing her duty and being a good wife. Time went by, she knew everything was wrong, yet she was too ashamed or maybe too weak to admit it. She tried to walk away so many times, but never quite enough until money dried out and she packed her cases, kissed her English husband and her beloved dogs and headed back to England. She did not really know.
Six months later her husband left her and it is not like she did not want it. She loved someone else for a long time now. But what was there to come now? After losing almost everything including the dogs; she did not really know.
This little girl is still very much a girl even if she is not that little anymore. She is afraid. But she dreams. She is finally studying at the university and tries to kiss the boy she loves goodnight every night. She has a rubbish job so it does not always happen, she can't always manage to kiss him goodnight, she can't always manage to act as if she is normal, she has so many marks and scratches like the shoes on the reduced shelf. It is OK we all get damaged on our way. All she ever believed in were her dreams and love. All she has left now is her dreams because she can no longer really trust love because she does not really know...
This post is so evocative and beautifully raw. That conversation with the aging gentleman, the ambition, the struggle, that sense of hope and the lovely image of scuffed shoes on a reduced shelf... such powerful imagery. You are a writer, my friend!
ReplyDeleteThank you TWS. I have always dreamt of finding the capability in me to be able to write 'raw' it seems to be so difficult for me as I tend to wrap everything in cotton wool. Let's hope I can continue just as well. x
ReplyDeleteThis is a very astute observation. I too yearn to write in a more beautifully raw fashion. I feel that my writing is almost always veiled. However, I feel certain that we reveal more than we might realize. Truly, as a reader, there is already such a beautifully raw quality to your writing here in this post. I feel rather certain that a habit of writing will increasingly allow for that raw stuff to emerge effortlessly.
ReplyDeleteI think the fear is - if you write raw, you expose yourself. That in turn makes you very vulnerable. I suppose it is a gamble.
ReplyDeleteWe'll get there anyway...