Some Kind of Wonder

The time has come to admit I will never be Nancy Drew. Or a Copa Cabana dancer. Yes as I approach my 40th year -- reality has started to point the finger of truth about my life.

It feels like five minutes ago that I was climbing trees and planning out my future from my leafy kingdom. That skinny 10 year old girl who constantly believed all was possible. I was going to be a Rockette, Wonder Woman, or maybe the Bionic Woman. I was going to own a newspaper, tell amazing stories and write books to transport people to dreamy far away places with my words.

While I have been able to accomplish a few of these things, still those pesky paths not taken break my heart. Like the ski instructor job offer in Crested Butte Colorado. Or the chance to work for the big deal Chicago advertising agency. Then the nanny setup in the Hamptons with the Italian family. I said no to all of these and I can’t help but dream about the possibilities. Instead of Wonder Woman, I have become a wondering woman.

I hope this doesn’t make me out to be a whiner. Really, I adore my current path. I love the fact that I get to write, be a mom, class room parent and a wife. It’s only sometimes in the daily minutiae I begin to wonder. When my days are filled with endless laundry, e-mails, schlepping my dog to his cancer treatment and I am greeted with not-so-happy notes from my son’s teacher that I think, “hey, what about Nancy Drew?”

Or then there’s some throwback song that sucks me back to my own version of land before time. I’m not talking about the dinosaur cartoon movie. I’m talking about hearing some 80s song and transporting myself back to my college campus, gawking at some hottie frat guy without a shirt, grilling hot dogs and smiling to myself, “man, I can do just about anything.”

And I can. Sort of. Well, as long as I can be on time for carpool pickup and it doesn’t conflict with piano lessons and hockey games. Which leads me to appreciate that in some ways I kind of am a Wonder Woman. The amazing fact that I can accomplish breakfast, carpool, a load of laundry, writing a few pages, getting my son and husband out the door and down 2 cups of coffee all before 7:30 in the morning. Let’s not mention that I have packed up lunches, library books to return and stuffed my own workout bag in there too. And I’m not sharing that to brag, but I find it pretty inspiring.

Still, I’d rather be Nancy Drew sometimes. I know it’s ridiculous. I guess I’m missing the risky, adventure, the heady sort of wonder. The chance to have a day with surprise, delight, magic, charmingness. My days feel so ordinary. They line up together like simple smooth stones. The day by day grayness of making beds, going to work, cooking dinner and doing it all over again. All the while dreaming of something crazy happening other than getting caught by the neighborhood association with my garage door up. The surprises like the one time I found this plain stone at the beach, but turning it over discovering a brilliant pearl belly. The delight of unexpected heady wonder in my hands.

My stepdaughter graduated from college this year and I am beside myself. It’s all I can do to drown her in unsolicited advice about the world and what she should do with it. I want to shout “Go! Take risks, do something ridiculous, live your dream, take the hardest possible path you can imagine, don’t arrange your life around what’s easy. Listen to your heart. Travel. Do amazing things. Explore the limits of yourself. Don’t settle. Be bold! Go before you have a mortgage payment!”

But there will be no hearing of that. Not in a way that she could understand anyways. It wouldn’t be fair to project my own choices on her. She has to find her feet on her own. I will encourage her to be true in her career choices, but I think she sees me and doesn’t really get it. Yet I try to help her understand that the orderly life isn’t all there is to the world. That carpool, work, dinner, laundry, church repeat isn’t the end.

I want to help her see that she really could become a Copa Cabana dancer if she wants to. I sit in carpool pickup and wonder of donning a sequined beautiful costume of ridiculous feather headdresses on dangerously high-heeled shoes. Walter Mitty style, I tune out while I should be making productive use of my time by checking voicemail or readying my son’s snack. But I don’t. I sit and wonder.

The ache still remains of those paths not taken. I wish I had something brilliant to say about how to let them go. I’m guessing that ache spot is meant to stay there to keep us connected to our Creator. His thumbprint to remind us that there is a part of you that can only be satisfied divinely. The knowing that life here is temporary and the true heady wonder comes only in the next round.