The Me I Used to Be

There I was doing my most unglamorous Tuesday morning job of sweeping the leaves and the cigarette butts from the sidewalk, wearing my most unglamorous cleaners outfit – and she strode by all long legs, gleaming blonde tresses and youthful beauty.

For a moment there I was overwhelmed by a sense of loss. I will never look like that again – with smooth, unlined skin unmarked by the ravages of time. Even if I lost the fifteen or so extra kilos I’ve managed to acquire since the days of my youth, I would never be able to look good in short skirts and form fitting shirts. All I could ever hope to achieve would be to look like ‘mutton dressed up as lamb’.

But then, in the midst of my sudden depression, it occurred to me that even back in those long gone days when I was still young and glowing with the radiance of my youth – I never really found much solace in the state of my being.

I found myself thinking that I really wasted so much of my life. I was so busy fretting about things that I see now were of little consequence in the overall scheme of things. I was always in such a hurry to get on with things. To finish school. To leave home. To get married. I never just took the time to revel in being young.

Then it occurred to me that I might still live for another twenty years or more. Things certainly won’t get any better with regard with wrinkles and sagging body parts, that’s for sure. So, in ten, or fifteen years time, I will be looking back on today as ‘the good old days’. As I shuffle along with my walking frame, I will probably be thinking that at least, back then, I could still cope with demands of my cleaning job.

As I said, I felt as though I squandered the opportunities of my youth by being in such a rush to move forward. The last thing I want to do is waste the opportunities of the present by lamenting what is now in the past.

My family and friends don’t see me in terms of my age, or how many wrinkles I have. To them I am just ‘me’ and they love me accordingly. Maybe I need to learn to love and appreciate the me I am now rather than to long for the me I used to be.
©Lyn Murphy 2010

Happily Ever After

And they lived happily ever after!

Isn’t that the way the fairy tales usually end? Cinderella – Sleeping Beauty – Snow White – they all had to overcome some major obstacles in their lives. Wicked step mothers, ugly step sisters – enslavement, banishment, attempted murder, even drug induced comas that lasted for one hundred years. Yet, at the end of it all, the beautiful princesses got to ride off into the sunset with their handsome princes, to a magical place where they lived out the rest of their lives in absolute bliss.

Of course, as adults, we don’t believe in fairy tales. Yet we still love those feel good movies and novels where, despite a million-and-fifty reasons as to why the relationship in question could never work out, they still end up together. We still heave a sigh of relief when they rush into each other’s arms for that final, long, passionate kiss before the credits start to roll.

Deep down, I suppose we all realize that the fairy tale princesses and the characters in the movies and the novels are all very one-dimensional. Their lives consist of a plot in which they are faced with a challenge. Once this challenge is overcome, they are rewarded by receiving the object of their desires.

It’s hard to discover that real life doesn’t work that way. On numerous occasions I have been the shoulder-to-cry on for friends who were in the midst of some great drama in their lives. I’ve heard them wail
‘All I want is to be happy. Is that too much to ask? I just want to be happy!’

But sometimes it seems to me that we tend to think of ‘happiness’ as a destination. It’s that kingdom where the princesses are living out their joyous existences with their handsome princes. They had to go through quite a bit to get there, but, once they did, they could stay forever.

The sad truth is that happiness is more about choice. It’s true that it’s easier to feel ‘happy’ when circumstances are favourable. But the people to be envied the most are the ones who manage to be happy in the face of all adversity. They are the ones who realize that their lives may never be magically transformed into something wonderful; that they might never get to escape the ugly, imprisoning, dangerous things in their world. And yet they still manage to find contentment, and cause for celebration, in the simple, everyday routines of living – because they make a choice to do so.
©Lyn Murphy 2010