Today, I got my Girl Back
Any woman who has ever felt herself lost in the miasma of a daily life that includes jobs, a man, kids, pets, dinners, housework, mini-vans, bills, and a million other things that drown out her own voice will understand this writing.
A few years ago I had that great fortune to attend a week-long writer's workshop. It was held at a University and as it was summer, I stayed in the student residences in a little room with a single bed. I had a wonderful time and experienced a real awakening as a writer. Not only that, I felt I was given the rare opportunity to re-live the experience of being a young woman living away from home for the first time. Those delicious fresh emotions swept over me one morning as I prepared to go to my class. I promptly sat down and wrote the following, capturing the feelings of my experience in these words.
Today I got my girl back, the girl who has been sitting inside, looking at the walls, pulling down her skirt, waiting, waiting. Today she came back. She waited a long, long time, but there she is, still the same.
Eyes wide. It's all so new - those big buildings, that expanse of lawn. In every room new things, new thoughts, ideas - all interesting, none sneered at, dismissed. No one hanging on.
No one needs me here. No one requires me to take that bill to the insurance agents, make sure there's enough ham for their sandwiches, put gas in the car. No one needs this girl.
Here it's only what she needs. She sits on a bench after the sun has set and lets the warm evening hold her. She does not have to be anywhere. There is no one waiting, wondering - "She said she'd be home by nine." Just the girl, with her black cloth bag and her notebook and pen, sleeping in a single bed. A single bed. With no room for anyone else, even if there were someone else. Which there is not, not here.
The girl gets up when she wants to, eats when she's hungry and not when it's time. Doesn't cook. This girl has no pots and pans, only a small basket of cherries and a bag of almonds. This girl has as many choices as she wants.
She buys books because she wants them, with no backward glance. A sleeve that knows no tugs. The watch on her arm rarely gets a glance. It doesn't matter. No one is coming home hungry. No one is coming home; there is no home, no floor to clean.
The girl came back today, walking surely out of 1974, where she sat down to check her nails and couldn't get up again. She smiled. I smiled. I'm glad she's back. I was afraid I might never see her again, this girl so full of life, so real, so honest, so excited about life.
I missed her, though she lived in a box in the cupboard under the eaves, with her things from 1974. I found the key to the cupboard finally and it opened and... Today I got my girl back.
~~~~~
Wendy Dewar Hughes, inspiration for the Art of life, love and lusciousness, publishes the Luscious E-letter filled with fun and practical ideas to make your life more luscious. If you are ready to be inspired to dream, believe and live a more luscious, creative life, go to www.wendydewarhughes.com for more, plus your FREE gift.
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