Where Do You See Yourself?
I guess I’m at the age where people suddenly take a liking to asking me about “Where I see myself in X years”. I satisfy them with some cryptic answer like, “Well, still in the field” — by which I mean medicine—and “Hopefully with some financial security” —by which I mean, I can afford a dog and a respectable wardrobe.
What do I actually see, though, when I flick my eyes ahead, to that future?
What am I envisioning when you ask me where I see, what I see, who I see?
I keep hoping to wake up tall, but heels will do. I’ll wear them ‘till I die, probably be buried in them. I can pull off 5’6’’ if I shake out my spine.
Blazers. Lots of blazers. Pencil skirts and sheer hosiery — the expensive stuff, not the cheap ones with runs that I coat with clear nail polish.
I don’t see a man in my life so much as I see some harbinger of testosterone, nondescript. I’m wearing his linen pajama top, jotting down notes as sunlight peaks through the drapes because I’m perpetually a morning person who accomplishes a day’s worth before noon.
Looking out the window from a slightly reclined position on the couch, the windowsill is directly eye-level with the ocean, from which I am never far to roam. An open window lets in salty air that I suck up greedily.
I lick the spoon after stirring my coffee, dropping it (God willing) in the dishwasher, which I pop shut with my foot. One hand holding my mug, the other clasping a book or two, I never have hands available for housework.
I’m the boss but I’m not the bitch.
It’s not inconceivable that someday I will tussle the hair of a small child, not of my body but whose need for love resonated with me deeply. Troubled though we both are, the feeling of my hand in their hair heals us both.
If not the hair of a forgotten child, then the fur of a dog named Petie.
Throwing my head back I laugh freely. Alone and in good company.
Even though no one I work with would believe it, home alone at night after the hosiery and the heels and the make up comes off, the hair comes down, the Bruce Springsteen comes on and I dance. I am capable of joy.
I keep fresh cut flowers in my bedroom and each night I take a moment to pluck off the dead petals, remembering how in my youth dead petals collected on the living room floor, scattered like I used to be.
Closing my eyes, my breathing slows, and I begin to fall asleep; relieved that the day is over. Whether I’m twenty, forty, or eighty years old, my relief at the end of each day will never be matched until the moment when it all fades to black, and people ask me no longer, “Where do you see yourself?” but say of me,
