Delusions

She's standing in front of me. This is painfully symbolic. We are both in line waiting for our turn at the bank teller. Judging by the way we are not moving, it appears we have at least a good wait ahead of us. I'm glad, actually, because I've needed to study her, up close, for sometime now.

I don't know her personally, of course, but I know her very well. She is the grown up representation of all the girls I wanted to be. She is the one who somehow garnered all the good sense when I was off on an artistic tangent. She was the one who had social skills and a strong game plan for her future, from the tender age of six, while I was swept up in daydreams of being a ballerina or actress or famous painter. In high school she was a cheerleader and member of the elite group while I was immersed in an alternate universe with the right-brained bohemian thespians. She wore the perfect clothes, had the perfect hairstyle, polished Bass Weejun loafers covered her perfectly arched feet. Her graceful hands tipped with freshly manicured nails are, even now, flawless as ever. Adding insult to injury, her polished charm is not tainted with the slightest hint of arrogance.

How annoying is that?

I recognized her immediately because she exudes grace that she was most certainly born with. How can you fault someone who was born with it? Time has been most kind to her. She is still a slender, ideal five foot four. Her starched striped oxford shirt is neatly tucked into pressed khakis. I notice she has updated the loafers though. She is a balanced combination between classic good taste and new era fashion.

Actually the first thing that draws my attention is her hair. She's still sporting that amazing ageless pageboy. Well, of course she is. It works for her, which is her modus operandi and it's predictably reasonable. It's not the choppy spiky modern cut, nor is it grandma helmet head. I would expect nothing less of her to be able to maintain a style that is exactly right at all times, through all decades. I'd really love to ask her where in the world she has found someone who can still cut hair like that but I'm no less intimidated by her now than I was in 1964. I wouldn't know how to initiate a conversation with her today anymore than I could have back then.

When she turns her head, I'm taken aback. I note that the Wrinkle Rank puts her at about five years older than I. You would not guess it from the back view. I am not surprised, however, that she hasn't succumbed to Botox. That would be totally inconsistent with her grounded sensibility. But her smile reveals perfect orthodonically aligned teeth.

With plenty of time to waste, I shift my weight to my other bad knee and dive in whole hog to wonder about the last forty years of her life. It wouldn't be a stretch to assume she attended a good college. Being five years older, I doubt she got involved in the Vietnam war protests, marches and sit-ins of the late sixties, not to say that she and her sorority sisters hadn't had their good causes though. She earned her BA in the appropriate four years and found a proper job. When she married, she had a fairytale wedding and she and her new husband settled into a cozy apartment, diligently saving their money to buy their first home, a modest suburban ranch and started their family at just the right time. She decided to quit her job and stay home to raise her children but kept busy volunteering at the school and a variety of other community based organizations including a good church. She was terrific at it too, because, being sensible, she never overbooked herself so that she could give each project her undivided attention until it was completed. She is likely an alumnus and mentor of the local Junior League and she leads a Sunday school class.

She was born and raised to make good choices, after all, and she did, and continues to do so. Even though her children have probably married and divorced at least once each, she and her husband of thirty-five years continue to be the anchor to the family boat. Amidst the raging financial and relationship storms of the current era they stand strong together, unified by the good, middle-of-the-road decisions they have made, working hard, acquiring material goods only after saving for them and compromising their core values only when compromise was the best way to end conflict.

She was the hero of my hormonal, idealistic, willful youth and she remains the champion of what remains of the prudent, refined, well-balanced woman of a rapidly declining civilized culture. Intelligent but not aggressively so, she is able to form solid opinions that keep her on the straight and narrow path with a comfortable margin on either side. Her well-earned unassuming self-confidence has stood her in a good and unwavering stead.

I am not foolish enough to think she has never had troubles or grief in her life. This fantasy of mine is fed and perpetuated by my own enduring misgivings about my irreversible choices and shortcomings, not an unreasonably rose-colored glasses view of life. There is no logical rationale for why we cling to certain ideals, however absurd they may be, but we just do. Sometimes we have expectations that are heavy canvas duffle bags that we drag behind us from childhood into maturity and often all the way to our graves. It is unfortunate that we limit ourselves by these self-designed myths rather than giving ourselves permission to let go of our illusions of what constitutes a perfect life.

I'm grateful for this opportunity to pull this burdensome thing out into the light for a more realistic examination. While I did give up, some time ago, the notion that I could ever be or become this kind of woman, there are traces that linger, constantly threatening to expose my inadequacies and self-inflicted failures. I also finally gave up longing to be a ballerina or a fine-artist as well, though this was much less difficult given my genuine lack of skills or training in these pursuits. I accept that I am what I am and whatever that is I give it everything I've got however sub-standard it might be. I'll never live up to my own expectations but then, it never occurred to me, until now, that maybe she didn't either. What if she would have enjoyed being more erratic and less sensible? Maybe she would have loved a shot at diving in to the middle with reckless abandon, working her way out to both ends without the burden of sensibility binding her to the best possible approach.

What if this woman, who has always made her hard life choices based on an inherent wisdom, keeping what is in her own best interest as the priority, might also have had regrets about those safe choices? Imagine how it feels, after all these years, to consider that this icon of my lifelong delusions might have thought life would be less ordered but infinitely more fulfilling if lived less wisely and more serendipitously. What if she has wanted to be more like my kind all along? Some delusions are infinitely better than others, especially if they make you feel good about yourself.

Maybe I’ll go with this new one for a while.