PENDULUM of Time

THE BRIGHT LIGHT AND CORD SWINGING OVERHEAD, a small voice backed by a low "aroo rooh" in the background all worked together to pull my eyes open to a squint. A cold nuzzle at the side of my thigh by the live-in dog, and the few quick pokes to my ribs by the boney finger of a twelve year old forced an agonized but entertaining "ooph,"response doled too often of late. Too often, too early in every day's morning at 2:30, I was called awake for a drive across town to deliver or pick up a working soul. The light cord swung like a pendulum morning after morning reminding me that time was passing like a wasted river; passing unused and without purpose for anyone or anything. Short of buying time for those I seemed to have corralled within the walls of my own time and the many walls that lock us... me and them... inside; I labor to rationalize their escape... and my own at their success.

For twelve years boney fingers have prodded me to his needs or the needs of his dad or the imagined wants of dad's dogs. No longer the baby I stood up to support in place of an absentee parent, pleading eyes have grown into a twelve year old stage of defiance while his dad plods on through the turmoils presented him by daily work routines, single parenting and creeping age. As aggressive age drags them across a waning time line, so it does me for not abandoning them to allow their progression in life. The idea of making a harsh departure tears at me and evades any creeping thoughts that enter their minds despite pointed innuendoes. To walk away, to drop the rope, to shed burdens once recommended by social ethnologists someplace in our generation's past would cost me for the time invested toward dainty plates and gala table settings with sons and daughters, and their loved ones. One more year down and nothing done. One more year done and I still sit waiting for the vacation, for the restarted family, for the dates and dinners with folks my age that never arrive. One more year of time that can not retreat to retrace the destiny of age, the sponteneity of patience or the tenacity of wasted mother's love and emotion. Among it all comes the realization that they need me to leave. They need me to break it all down, pack up and leave the area. That is the pendulum overhead for the most of this year's agony. The only way to address that issue is to swing back. I gathered up strings of what was a simpler past in efforts of doing just that. Gathered strings... the right strings, can make one serious bat... or battering ram against the constraints of nothing doing and lack of opportunity. I made a plan. I made a plan and spun out $695 for mandatory prelicensing courses and exam fees which had won me a much appreciated seat in the adult world some years back. If I did it then , I could do it now. I ran the unaccounted for expenditure out of my checking account and sat on needles and pins awaiting the date I'd chosen.

It came suddenly amidst a rush of, "We need to" and "Why can't you" backed by the too common, "Hold the dog while I cut this off of him," stressors and the bus stop traumas of lost identity buttons where running out at the end of the school day to cath the bus before they load up and bring the children home... "we need to go's"... the date crept up on me in a scramble of hours and moments and addresses on which side of town. I needed to, "be there on time." It was a scramble of time that couldn't allow for a blackout. Fainting or having a stroke would be an unforgivable act. It was a "no refund" venture. Yes, I realized that at the accomplished late age of my days, re-licensure should not have been something to consider. The supportive words provided in AARP Magazine reassured me that reattaining a previous career or career goal was the route that "everyone" was persuing or should be pursuing "to maintain a sense of self worth."

I found the address nearly one and one half hours after the class started and was sent out to pay for the course so that I could be credited for "being there." I actually wondered if I was there at all. The buzz in my mind centered around self comparison of the spoken laws of relevancy and my own personal experiences relevant to the course subject. I doubted I was in the right field to regain licensing. There was always real estate. I made it thru the mandatory "sit in" portion of course attendance, studied the required number of personal conflict hours and signed up for the state exam. I was committed now of cash and time. My consideration for a stage comedy role would have to be delayed. There wasn't any money in that anyway, I don't know how comediens survive. I need to se the progress of my behavior. I went to sit for that exam.

The reactivation of my license in a new field of my chosen career requires little participation in the general public, can be done from home, now, and with selection of the right parent entity would allow me to present a means for struggling comediens to hold their dignity in hand. IF I CAN GET THE RIGHT LINE UP, it would even allow me to host myself into the aura of those already out there... a reason to "go out" and seek an entertaining social life. It could do all that and was going to have to be the sliding floor that set me out of my home from my offspring. License in hand, I could anything but stand to lose. Whether I sell or service there could be only appreciation for the who I was.

I may have been the disappointment to first husbands by not being that Hustler style Swingers Club, pimp stance trophy type woman. I was less than nothing for that case. I didn't follow through. I was raised Methodist Episcopalian and that mode of life was an other than id for future projection. It could only fail in the light of the life I was destined for. I was a square peg no yet fit into any preferred mold. Forever curing the ill sense of the direction life and companions tended to bring, leaping into and out of career and relationship memes; now I could accomplish the pomp and stance fought for by the world's most admirable ... politics, sales and business plains in appreciable levels of gain. I would have to be somewhat of a "turn-around" set to STEP forward away from all past disdain. That, perhaps, would be just what my children needed. Reprieve by a latest husband's prominent gesture and that of his family's hand, as granted, is the assitance I need... walking forward at seventy years old.