I went home today - to Stratford and it brought back all kinds of stuff. Stuff. Just stuff.
Back in the day - I left home immediately after high school to move to Toronto - I couldn't wait to get free. So much so that I graduated high school a year early. I can't say just what it was that pushed me out or enticed me away but there was something and it was urgent and important.
When I lived in Toronto I would come home on the train. As the train got closer and closer to Stratford - closer and closer to home - I would get more and more nervous. I would leave my seat and make my way to the train washroom and check my makeup - make sure that everything was just right. Toronto Sandra needed to cover up what needed to be covered up and fluff what needed fluffing. I always freaked out about my clothing and worried that I was dressed right - making sure that I looked my very best.
It wasn't that I was trying to impress anyone in particular - mostly I was just trying to make sure that I had all my chutzpah before I landed at home. I needed to be Toronto Sandra before I got there so I could hold it together. Stratford Sandra held nothing together.
Stratford Sandra was different than Toronto Sandra.
Stratford Sandra remembered the summer between grade 13 and University when I had an interview to work at Kmart. The lady that interviewed me actually told me that she couldn't hire me because I wouldn't fit into the uniform - which at that time was a horrid polyester overblouse with gabardine pants. Because of my gigantic girth I couldn't be a cashier at Kmart. There wen
t my career plans.
Today - as I drove towards Stratford two decades later - I actually put on lipstick while drive 100km/h on the highway. And strangely it brought all that junk flooding back. I had that panic again today - that I'm not good enough - I'm too ugly - too fat - too stupid - MUST get out....must be Toronto Sandra because the uniform doesn't fit Stratford Sandra.
What would have happened if I'd stayed?
As I sat at the Erie Drive In waiting for my battered mushroom lunch I looked at the giant mouth breather amish-looking guy - waiting for his fish burger - and driving away in his big man pick up truck. I bet I could have gotten some guy like that to knock me up. I could have been his dutiful wife popping out babies and keeping a decent (although not likely clean!) home and making my family jams and preserves. We would have gone camping every summer and it would have been just what I wanted.
Or - conversely I could have been a great single mom - living in the city housing out by the old drive-in - watching as my kids ran shoeless across the parking lot towards the broken down playground. I could have whipped up nutrient rich meals with my cunning use of condensed milk, bologna and frozen veggies. I could be the teller with a heart of gold just working my ass off to make a living for my poor fatherless brood, hanging out at Classics on a Saturday night trying to find them another daddy.
Or I could have gone back home - taken that University degree that I never finished and got myself a good job as a paralegal. I could have scrimped and saved and bought myself a nice decent townhouse in the good part of town behind the new fire station. I would have tastefully decorated with a pleasant mixture of innovative paint techniques and figurines. On Saturday nights my old friend and I would sit with popcorn and big glasses of gin and tonic and watch sad girl movies sobbing out our eyes for the loves we never found and the boys that never felt us up.
But none of those things happened. None of those Sandras materialized. Not that I'm saying that Toronto Sandra is any great shake. She has her share of ups and downs and her life certainly never turned out like a plan or a novel that anyone would purposely make. She still makes the effort though to pretend to rise above the rats ass girl she left behind.
Stratford makes me slightly nuts. I'm a mix of emotions the whole time I'm there - full of memories and regrets and insecurities. I like to keep the visits short. Very short.
Back in the day - I left home immediately after high school to move to Toronto - I couldn't wait to get free. So much so that I graduated high school a year early. I can't say just what it was that pushed me out or enticed me away but there was something and it was urgent and important.
When I lived in Toronto I would come home on the train. As the train got closer and closer to Stratford - closer and closer to home - I would get more and more nervous. I would leave my seat and make my way to the train washroom and check my makeup - make sure that everything was just right. Toronto Sandra needed to cover up what needed to be covered up and fluff what needed fluffing. I always freaked out about my clothing and worried that I was dressed right - making sure that I looked my very best.
It wasn't that I was trying to impress anyone in particular - mostly I was just trying to make sure that I had all my chutzpah before I landed at home. I needed to be Toronto Sandra before I got there so I could hold it together. Stratford Sandra held nothing together.
Stratford Sandra was different than Toronto Sandra.
Stratford Sandra remembered the summer between grade 13 and University when I had an interview to work at Kmart. The lady that interviewed me actually told me that she couldn't hire me because I wouldn't fit into the uniform - which at that time was a horrid polyester overblouse with gabardine pants. Because of my gigantic girth I couldn't be a cashier at Kmart. There wen
t my career plans.Today - as I drove towards Stratford two decades later - I actually put on lipstick while drive 100km/h on the highway. And strangely it brought all that junk flooding back. I had that panic again today - that I'm not good enough - I'm too ugly - too fat - too stupid - MUST get out....must be Toronto Sandra because the uniform doesn't fit Stratford Sandra.
What would have happened if I'd stayed?
As I sat at the Erie Drive In waiting for my battered mushroom lunch I looked at the giant mouth breather amish-looking guy - waiting for his fish burger - and driving away in his big man pick up truck. I bet I could have gotten some guy like that to knock me up. I could have been his dutiful wife popping out babies and keeping a decent (although not likely clean!) home and making my family jams and preserves. We would have gone camping every summer and it would have been just what I wanted.
Or - conversely I could have been a great single mom - living in the city housing out by the old drive-in - watching as my kids ran shoeless across the parking lot towards the broken down playground. I could have whipped up nutrient rich meals with my cunning use of condensed milk, bologna and frozen veggies. I could be the teller with a heart of gold just working my ass off to make a living for my poor fatherless brood, hanging out at Classics on a Saturday night trying to find them another daddy.
Or I could have gone back home - taken that University degree that I never finished and got myself a good job as a paralegal. I could have scrimped and saved and bought myself a nice decent townhouse in the good part of town behind the new fire station. I would have tastefully decorated with a pleasant mixture of innovative paint techniques and figurines. On Saturday nights my old friend and I would sit with popcorn and big glasses of gin and tonic and watch sad girl movies sobbing out our eyes for the loves we never found and the boys that never felt us up.
But none of those things happened. None of those Sandras materialized. Not that I'm saying that Toronto Sandra is any great shake. She has her share of ups and downs and her life certainly never turned out like a plan or a novel that anyone would purposely make. She still makes the effort though to pretend to rise above the rats ass girl she left behind.
Stratford makes me slightly nuts. I'm a mix of emotions the whole time I'm there - full of memories and regrets and insecurities. I like to keep the visits short. Very short.
1 comment:
reminds me of a quote...i don't knw where i heard it...or when...or who said it. but it was simply:
"The past doesn't exist any more than the future."
That kept ringing through my head while i read this blog.
Neither one exists...really. Ideas of both are EQUALLY - JUST in our head. Memories are just as material as our dreams.
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