Time and Desire

I have been thinking lately about how quickly time passes and how little we do to take that fact seriously and go after our heart's desire while there is still time.

When I was living in the suburbs, I kept thinking that some external factor would come along that would force us to move back to the city. A terrorist attack in the White Plains Mall? A pandemic of mosquito driven bird fever that was only transmitted by suburban mosquitos? I remember reading an article about a family from Pennsylvania whose daughter was an aspiring actress and the whole family had to move to the city to allow her to pursue her ambition to attend a child's acting academy. My daughter played the flute, but she had a great music program at her local middle school (darn it)., and she wasn't quite Julliard material...yet.

So, when I finally did make it clear that I wanted to move back to the city and was no longer willing to wait until my street got hit by a twister, all hell broke loose. My husband, daughter and son joined forces against me. This was their home town, this was where their friends lived (as if no other friends were possible anywhere else) and the city was a dirty, noisy place that is nice to visit but not for more than three or four hours at a time.

But the truth is that by the time I actually expressed what I wanted I was strong enough to meet any opposition head on. I even threatened to buy an apartment no matter what. I had lived in the 'burbs for sixteen years and it wasn't working for me anymore. I knew what I wanted and I wasn't willing to compromise. I felt as though I had done my compromising for the previous sixteen years. And so often mothers (and fathers, too) feel like they are bad people when they express their desires for change. To quote the LIon King (Disney at its most Shakespearian), "oh yes, change is difficult" ( as Rafiki hits Simba over the head to knock some sense into him).

In the end, I got my wish, but only because I refused to give in to the guilt and the pressure to change my mind. And the hardest part was suffering through my daughter's utter unhappiness (which lasted a year). All of this I bore, and not easily,in order to be surrounded by the noise and the traffic and the bustle and the people that make me feel alive. Even my daughter now likes the freedom of going to see a Broadway show with her friend, and not needing a ride there or back.

I was never one to speak up about my own desires, because as a wife and a mother it is seemed selfish. And maybe it was selfish. But it was a step in fighting for my own happiness. Just one step at a time.