On Having It All

A couple weeks ago I was having dinner with a poet a few years younger than me. During the meal she said, "You have it ALL!" and started listing all the things I had. I interrupted and blurted, "But I don't have a book!" and started listing all the things I wanted that seemed hopelessly out of reach. That was a really stupid thing to say and I wish I hadn't. I couldn't help thinking that when I was her age, I desperately wanted all things she had, her publications, her degree, her "exciting" city-dwelling single life. Her freedom! When I was her age I was spending my days in a cubicle tugging at my too small bra thinking "I thought I was going to be somebody" and "Is it almost time for lunch?"

I need to learn how to be gracious. I need to stop getting so wrapped up in everything I want and remember I'm not a four year old selling chicklets to tourists. I need to remember that my 3 month son has a freakin' dental card already. I need to stop feeling like my day is ruined because that privileged and loved little boy wouldn't let me read a single poem in the new Canary or The Hat at the chain cafe where I was trying to front like my life hasn't totally been turned upside down. See cause he's young and a snob and wants to watch me eat my hummus veggie sandwich somewhere trendy and hip and I'm all "Tough shit, this is NoVa where corporations rool!" He says, "I want to live somewhere cooler, more literary." and I respond, "Tough shit. Cool and literary won't buy you those braces I promise you you'll need so thank your Kushies ultra cloth diapers (that are both ecologically sound and spare your bottom from rashes) that your daddy dances for the biggest anti-christ out there cause if it was left to me we'd be in a cult and I'd already have arranged your marriage to secure my position as high priestess of the goonies."

I think about my friend who got divorced last year. Both he and his wife were unhappy. I get the distinct impression that now that he's "free" he wishes he would have tried a lot harder to fix that marriage before it was too late.

I have to remind myself that I don't really want to be free. I don't really want it "all".

Still, I do want that book. So please backchannel with the names and what exactly is required. Knee socks or garters? I'm quite clueless when it comes this kind of stuff.