Are You Who You Thought You’d Be?
What will be your legacy?
I’ve been reading Sophia Benoit’s recent book of essays, Well, This is Exhausting. In one of them, she explores who she thought she’d be when she “grew up.” She says she assumed she’d live in New York, have lots of money, and speak fluent Italian, “useful for trysts with my rotating cast of Italian lovers.” Life, of course, had other ideas.
It got me thinking about who I thought I’d be, way back when. I never pictured having any Italian lovers (and that ship has sailed). Still, with my love of languages, I saw myself at the U.N., working as a simultaneous translator. To which I now say: OMG.
I had no grasp of the brain-power required to listen, digest, recall and correctly translate sentence after sentence in real-time. You think the world’s nations are at odds now? My screw-ups would have touched off World War 3!
Embarrassingly, I also had visions of being the next Bette Midler (because, obviously, one is never enough). Presumably I would have done my actress/comedian/singer/songwriter gig on my days off from the U.N. I even had this “glamour shot” taken in an attempt to morph into “The Divine Miss M.”
