Sometimes when my mind cannot handle the present, I go back in time. Lately I've been thinking a lot about a time in my life that very well changed me to become who I am today. I have no regrets, but I will admit that it makes me sad.
I was so young and impressionable. There was a woman in my family, a distant cousin, but was always known as Aunt Veda to me. She moved away when I was really young and while I used to spend summers with my great aunt, her mother, I didn't really know Veda.
I met her when I was about ten years old. I was instantly starstruck. She was everything I'd ever dreamed a woman could be. She was beautiful and brilliant. She'd lived all over the world, and she was so strong and independent. On top of that she had a husband who loved her more than life.
Looking back I think she must have seen it in my eyes. I was such a lost little girl growing up with everyone's ambitions but my own. We bonded that summer, and she became my sole inspiration. Over the next couple of years, Aunt Veda would call and write and send me little trinkets from places she'd go. She lived in Paris for a couple years as part of an exchange program through the University where she worked. I would write her pages and pages, and she never once dismissed me or made me feel like a child. She treated me like a young woman from the very beginning. She would always respond to everything I said, and it made me feel so secure. I drew so much strength from her.
When I was thirteen I saw a film on Archaeology in school. I was blown away by the science. I told Aunt Veda about how I thought maybe I wanted to do that when I grew up. The next package I got from her was filled with books on the subject along with a letter. She'd contacted a friend who was on a site dig in Egypt and he had agreed to be my penpal to tell me all about what he was doing.
Things were pretty rough during this time because my Dad's business had gone bankrupt, and we'd had to move. Finances were tough, and there was very little optimism about anything in our home. I was teased about the way I dreamed and soon enough they began to dim.... except when I was with Veda.
By this time every summer I was spending a couple weeks with her in Boston. Two weeks a year I was in heaven. She'd take me around to all the fancy places and introduce me to the most prominent people. By now she'd been named Director of Women's Studies and Interdisciplinary Humanities at the University of Lowell where she was a Professor of Philosophy. I had no idea what that meant except I loved standing in the glow of the person she was. She would take me to the University and everyone would ooh and ahh over me and tell me stories of how wonderful it would be when I became a student there.
Then she'd take me to have lunch with her husband at Boston College where he was a Professor. I'd get the same royal treatment there, and no fairytale ever told could have made me any happier. I would always make sure to pull out my best southern accent because they LOVED it. Even back then I knew how to work a crowd, I guess.
Then one day, I got a call from my great aunt. Veda, this strong, beautiful, larger than life woman had developed cancer. No one had any idea why or how. She was so healthy and so careful. She was invincible.
In September of my sixteenth year my great aunt and I flew up to Boston for our vacation with Veda. She'd lost all her hair and more weight than she'd had to lose. She was ghostly pale and very weak. But she looked just like the hero she'd always been to me. We spent those weeks vegging out on her bed with old movies, books of poetry, and tons of laughter. We drove up to Ogunquit and walked the beach for a few days. It was a cool spell, and it was perfect. Not so many tourists and beautiful beautiful sunsets. That's the only way I ever want to be on a beach to this day.
That was the last time I saw Aunt Veda. She died the following January, and I felt like the part of me that knew how to dream died with her. She was so young and beautiful and brilliant, and I hated God for taking her from me. I don't think I ever recovered from it.
That same year my best friend was killed by a drunk driver. He served eight months for it. We put a rose in an empty chair for graduation. I was the only person in a family of six to graduate from high school. My parents didn't attend the ceremony because my older sister had an emergency.
I made it to college, but I never made it to Lowell. My parents couldn't attend that ceremony because of an emergency dealing with my older brother. I didn't mind. I walked around in a dark haze for more than a decade. I was the same overachiever that I'd always been, but I was an echo person. I was empty inside. I stayed that way for years and years. I laughed hollow laughs, and I achieved meaningless goals. Anyone who knew me would have described me as the most confidient outgoing person around. If they'd only known. It's best they never do.
I'm no longer that lost little girl. I'm so much stronger now, and I try not to dwell on the sad things that happen in life, but every once in a while when I'm hurting and weak I can still feel her buried deep inside. And she's still just as unsure of herself, just as lonely, and just as scared. But she knows that doesn't matter. I will shake it off and smile and pretend everything is ok through the pain. Because if I have no other talent I'm a very good pretender, and I have a smile that is an excellent disguise.