i have lived my grandmother's dreams...
my grandmother was a school teacher, a suffragette, and a "rosie the riveter". my grams wanted her daughters to live the life that she always dreamed off. my aunts didn't. one became an english teacher just like my grams. one was almost killed trying to make the olympics equestrian team. my mother was on track. she was on her way to the prestigious role of english literature professor--tenured--at a major university. my grams wanted so much for her daughters to have the opportunity be equal, to view themselves as equal, and to be independent and mentors--not just for women, but for men. my aunts fell short, and my mother--passed away when i was young.
i became my grandmother's potential to realize her dreams. i'm not sure that my aunts or my mother could have realized her dreams. the baby boomer generation received a lot of mixed messages, and their lives were overly altered by drug usage, an over emphasis on sexual revolution, and greed. but the granddaughters...well, we were potential. i was the favored granddaughter. period. i thought i was equal--not just because i was told i was. my grandfather had no grandsons. i was the second grand-daughter with little hope for any more grandchildren. i was his favorite granddaughter. i got to work on bertha--my grandfather's precious tractor. i got to ride dirt bikes. i got to climb trees. i got to play football with the boys. i got to shoot rifles and pistols. my grandfather encouraged all of this. on the flip side, my grandmother would dress me up in frilly pink dresses and white patent shoes for easter. she also would tell me i was equal to the boys. i could do anything they could--i could weld, fix cars, play football, and i could still dress like a girl, act like a girl and expected to be treated like a lady. this was my grandmother's hope. this was every suffragette's hope--that we could be equal where it wasn't our sex that determined what we could do or achieve in life. it was never their contention that we couldn't have the social niceties--just the ability to achieve equally.
grams would be proud. i was military. i love the military and i excelled. i finished a bachelor's in engineering at a top university--a university that 60 years ago was a military academy for men only. i have worked my way up a food chain that most men don't get to my level--let alone women. women have and are making those leaps and bounds in much higher numbers now, but i've done something that both men and women don't achieve on the norm. you work hard for it, you earn it and literally 100 years ago, my grandmother and the other suffragettes looked at it as a pipe dream. so i've achieved their pipe dream. their dreams lived and realized through me and other young women striving to be more.
this is my grams' dream. i've lived it. is it mine? i'm forced to look at my life and am i happy? absolutely, i'm happy with what i've achieved. do i want to achieve more and continue to live my grams' dream? i don't know. what happened to my dream? did i have one? i look back this is my dream--it is the dream that was instilled into me years ago. it started when i was born...this is the dream.
but my grandfather told me i was a princess. he instilled that thought that there was that perfect prince--not prince william (yea, cuz he's too young for me...lol...) but that i was entitled to my prince charming. that i was supposed to have the love of my life and my grams well she kept pushing that we (my cousins and i) could have it all. men could have a fufilling career and the love of their life...and so could we. nothing was ever in contridiction that they taught me. i could have both. i, well, i dreamed of both.
i have the career. i've worked hard for it and i've been successful overall. i'm trustworthy and hard-working. these are strong traits in me and cherished traits to excel in a career. but i have no prince, no prince charming. the last couple of days i'm thinking about this missing piece. my grandmother didn't consider this important. she was very concerned about the career, the freedom of one's own paycheck, the perfection of being able to afford your own life. it is a wonderful feeling--it is: "buying your own perfect shoes: $150. buying your own wonderful house: several $K. being able to afford your own independence: priceless."
but grams had my grandfather. it wasn't a needed part to the equation, because it was assumed it was there. it was--for grams and grandpa. but it was never discussed with me how i would get to have both. when i was almost 18, i met tommy. tommy was 6'5", 260 lbs., blonde hair, blue eyes, and he was great. he was smart, attractive, big teddy bear type--an adorable farm boy from back home. grandpa would've loved him had he lived long enough. when tommy proposed there was no doubt in my mind that i should marry him. we had agreed to a fairly long engagement--a little more than 2.5 years, based on college and military service (his not mine--mine came after...after this fell apart...)but a year before our wedding, tommy wanted to runaway, elope, and live a year at ft. benning til he was discharged. he was opposed to discussion and there was no changing his mind. we should be married now--not next year. i didn't want to get married then. i wanted to wait for our original date--a year away. i wanted time to live my life, and i wasn't even sure why. a poor choice of words on his part, and well suffice to say, the argument ended when i quit answering his phones calls and marking all his letters return to sender.
but why did i? i loved tommy more than i ever loved anyone. and the following 20 years produced no one who could compete--not that anyone had to. (we could talk about my ex, who i thought could at the time--but he wasn't of the caliber of person, but of course, that's another blog.) but i wanted to live my own life--just for a bit. it had been so deeply ingrained in me that i needed that extra year, and it had been so deeply ingrained into tommy that we were supposed to be married that extra year sounded ridiculous. all of our friends were marrying--we were that age. but i wanted more that to be a farmer's housewife. i wasn't sure what i wanted, but i didn't want to own a floral shop or a hair salon or be a school teacher or nurse. i wanted to be me, and maybe i was clueless what that was other than what tommy said or wanted. marriage at that moment would have taken that away the ability to find myself, and yet to him, marriage was a requirement at our age.
did he love me? absolutely. did i love him? absolutely. but i've always told myself it wasn't meant to be. period. tommy was like me--smart, really smart...fun, responsible, dedicated. a bit of an anomoly in his own right, an achiever. he also was morally my equal. there's only been one man since of tommy's caliber, but not of tommy's innocence. we were innocent back then, before anyone had broken hearts...
i live my grams' dream still, but my dream...my dream is in part the life i live now, and if i were with tommy, i wouldn't have lived that life. i would've lost out on 75% of what i thought was important in my life. i just wish i could have that love of my life who needs me and that i need, who matches me and who i match. 75% might be the life that makes you feel accomplished and i have that, but now i miss that 25% that makes life fufilled.--the 25% where you have the person that you need and that needs you. i lived and achieved my grams dreams in full...when do i get the portion that's my dream?
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