I am staring out my window, thinking.

"Will it always be like this," I wonder?

Where will I be next year? Or in 20 years? Who will I be with? When will it change?

Will I live in a fabulous villa in Tuscany? Spending my days, staring out at the beautiful Italian countryside, approving continental dinner party menu's and calligraphied place settings on thick pressed parchment, kissing my beautiful children before the nanny takes them poolside to play?

Will I move to some assembly line suburb, live in a new house, identical to the twenty around it, in some middle class development? Blasting Janis Joplin as I speed through Anytown, USA?

Egaaaaaaaddddsss. What a fucking nightmare.

Or, perhaps I will live in some swanky apartment in NYC with my brilliant artistic husband and our smart kids. All of us an efficient family unit, cracking jokes at the bland nuclear families we see portrayed on shows such as "Everybody Loves Raymond?"

Yes. That's more like it.

*~*

I could never have been that girl, you know? It was never my destiny. And my parents, they get it. I couldn't have stayed in that town, with those people. I wasn't one of them. I pined for years, planning the escape. My escape. And my parents knew it.

When I go back, I see what could have happened if I had not worked to get out. If I had given in and taken the easy road.

I would live in a modern, aluminum-sided housing development near that tragic clique of girls I ran around with...the ones with whom I slouched against the lockers in high school, late for class and not caring, maliciously sticking our feet out and tripping the nerds as they walked by...the ones I let dip their fingers into my brand-spanking new pot of Clinque lip gloss. The ones I played the game with - they thought I was one of them. They didn't know that even at 14 and 15 and 16 and 17 - the whole time - I was just playing along. I had no intention of being one of them.

It's possible that I would drive one of those terribly unfashionable grocery-go-getting minivan contraptions, fitting squirming children for their Buster Browns while my husband wore cheap, off-the-rack suits and even worse polyster ties to his 35K salaried job at which he was equally unhappy.

I would buy ground beef when it went on sale and freeze it. I would watch the Home Shopping Network and when I saw one of those contraptions that holds lint brushes and sewing kit utensils, maybe I would buy it because my husband had promised a long-overdue honeymoon. I would call up Charlene on the HSN and tell her how excited I was to purchase that kit for 9.99 (NOT 59.99, not 49.99, not 39.99, not 29.99 not 10.99 - ONLY 9.99!!!!) on my *Discover* card because The Man of the house has been promising me that trip to Disneyworld for our honeymoon and gosh - we've been married for 6 years now (6 years!) and we could really use some time away from the kids....

Once a week, we would get a sitter and go to Appleby's for dinner. We would drive the Saturn, since it's Saturday night. We would have nothing to say to each other. He wouldn't want to talk about his job because he hated it and was being screwed over for the *big promotion* and I wouldn't want to talk about the kids because this was supposed to be "our night." We would stare out at the crowd, in silence, him sipping his beer and me stirring that fruity drink special with the silly pineapple and umbrella that I ordered because I thought it would add some mystery to our relationship. We would eat quietly. Maybe someone we knew would stop by our table on their way out and we would be relieved - so relieved - for the interruption. After that person left that he or she would be fodder for the remainder of conversation.

I see people who live like this. But let me tell you something. That's not living to me.

I will not do that.

And when I re-read how I told you I define my own parameters for love and relationships, what I meant is that we all do.

My lover and I will mutually define our relationship. And perhaps, you will find it strange if we are not with each other X days a week. But you do not define our relationship. Nor do we define yours.

Today's world and society offers so many choices. So many occupations, so many lifestyle choices. Isn't it wonderful? You have all of *this* at your fingertips.

So why do you feel boxed in? And why would you want to end it all with suicide?

Yes, I understand the traditional concept of love and life and work that many of us face in suburban America or suburban anywhere.

But I am here, showing you the flipside of that stereotype. Here I am, free. defining my life and who I am and doing what interests me. Chasing what I want.

Free to define my life and my love. As are you.

And not everything I want comes to me. Nor do I think I am perfect or great or even, the happiest girl around. But I am working to make my dreams into my reality.

Work to make your life your own, and you are simply working toward your own happiness.

Dig it?

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