Looking for a 'bathroom book' this morning, I found a copy of Alice in Wonderland that I had read to my daughter when she was little. (She's 38 now). On the title page under the authors name 'Lewis Carrol' my daughter had written at sometime in her childhood 'real name Charles Dodgeson. Now, Alice is full of silly rhymes and nonsensical situations. And the one thing my daughter commented on was that the book was written under a pen name rather than the author's real name. And it struck me: A person who so so logical and obviously stood for no non-sense was probably bored out of her skull when I read aloud from that book, and all the other classic children s' books I read to her. We are just two very different people and I didn't have a chance of her growing up to be anything like me.
And at the ripe old age of almost 57, I have discovered something else. I am childless, with a different husband that the one I conceived my daughter with. I am going to live another life, because I have another life I must live. So why not have fun. I am tired of grieving and apologizing, and being angry. I can have fun, I can go places, I can indulge myself. I suddenly feel more childish wonder than I have felt in a very long time. The earth is a wonder, and I am alive, and someone loves me, and I have plans and things in the works, and I am ready to be visible again. I have decided to be my own child.