A Dangerous
Corner in the Road
______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Yesterday I
took a deep breath and offered my services for a job, for which not only am I
ill-prepared, but in my deep heart-of-hearts, I know I cannot do.
This will
seem like nothing to you but to me it is a BIG DEAL.
I offered to
go to Glendive to fill in as secretary for my daughter until she could hire
somebody adequate to her needs.
See? I knew
you would say, “So what?”
Back when I
was in high school (early 60’s) the career opportunities for women were sorely
limited. On the cusp of opening, perhaps, but in northeastern Montana, the
barriers were still firmly implanted. Five years later it was a whole different
world for women.
What were
our options? Nursing, secretarial work, store clerk, teaching and homemaking.
None of those jobs appealed to me in the least, but two things I knew I was
constitutionally incapable of being. A nurse? No way. A secretary? Not in a
million years.
What I
really wanted to do back then was to go to the University of Indiana, School of
Journalism. I let fear shove me against the wall in a paralyzing headlock and
took the easy way out. I got married.
Occupationally,
I already had the necessary skills. Emotionally, not so much.
Sometimes
what seems the easy road rounds a rocky corner and the resultant wreck tumbles
one onto an entirely different pathway, down a steep cliff, and splat, so to
speak.
I’m a most
fortunate person. Life gave me many rough corner turns. And I grabbed the
opportunity to learn many skills I could not have imagined back in those teen
years.
However,
fortunately, life protected many people along my pathways and neither nursing
nor secretarial work popped up as options. Those people who work those heroic
jobs have my undying admiration and gratitude.
I made my
offer to Dee Dee in fear and trembling, but, not to blindside my daughter, whom
I’ve not seen eyeball-to-eyeball in three years, I asked her if she thought I
could be trained to fill in on an emergency, very, very, very temporary, basis
while she assiduously searched for a real secretary.
She said,
“Oh, Mom, it would be easy for you.”
I thought
she knew me better than that.
But I love
my daughter with all my heart so I was willing to feed myself to the lions for
her. If it would help.
She turned
down my offer.
Perhaps she
does know me well.
Sondra
Ashton
Looking out
my back door
June 23, 2022
______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
No comments:
Post a Comment