Don’t Bother Trying This
It never did work and still won’t
By the time anyone’s made it past their 30th birthday, they’ve already lived several different incarnations. Ten years ago I was not the woman I am today and double that for twenty years ago.
And forty years ago? Who was that poor, confused kid who thought she was so ugly, so broken and messed up that no one could possibly love her? I look at photos taken when I was 21 years old and I was a BABE!
How could I not have seen that?
The Problem
So I was not quite 20 years old and had made my escape from the little white bread, mayonnaise, and cream of mushroom soup town where I’d grown up. I had always known I’d never be at home in that place.
I was living large in Cleveland, Ohio. Working in housekeeping at a Catholic nursing home (I can still recite Hail Mary, Full of Grace, Blessed art Thou among Women………which was broadcast over the loudspeakers at mealtimes). Stopping off for “one quick drink” night after night, closing the bar and then going through the agony of a 5 am alarm shrieking that it was time to get the hell up and get to work.
I had come to the city with dreams and a pretty big opinion of my abilities as an artist and painter. I had plans. But things weren’t working out the…
