‘What you plan to be doing and what you will be like in 10 years’ prompt
The alarm trill cut into her dream, a vague watery scenario featuring her father laughing.
She shut off the alarm on her iPhone, deleting the 530 am setting for each weekday. It had finally arrived. The day she had been looking forward to throughout the decades of her working life. Each blizzardy morning. Every painfully long conference call, webinar and committee meeting. All the difficult conversations, the panicky rumors of downsizing, the packed banker’s boxes, fade parties and first-day jitters. The team-building, the performance reviews, the wardrobe changes.
She would miss none of it.
Her last day as an FTE. Good riddance.
She faced the mirror with no trepidation. Her good genes continued to favor her, her pale eyes framed by few lines, her silver hair lighting her face.
She was still fit, thanks to her decade’s long fitness commitment — an obsession that went through all the crazes from aerobics to Zumba, finally ending with brisk walks along the river with her dogs.
She decided on an all-white outfit to symbolize her fresh start, and selected an out-sized murano glass pendant, a gift from her son, to accent the look. The necklace a nod to her future move to Rome.
Driving through the late-summer maze of corn and soybean fields, she drank it all in. She would miss these morning drives, each day’s sky a revelation.
But, the Italian skies beckoned with the promise of a gentle life.
There would be a party today. Friends and colleagues would recall how she made them crack up, how she helped them out of a jam, how much they would miss her bawdy humor and fashion sense.
She would drink it all in. She earned it; the hard-won results of being a lifetime people person.
That would continue, she hoped, in her new chapter.
She rehearsed the speech out loud in her car. “I’ve loved working here, giving back to the university where my adult life began. I’ve made beautiful friendships here — even found my husbands (pause for laughs) here. I thank you all… “
She would end with her usual “ciao for now”! And promise to make everyone welcome in their spare room at the pensione. She would encourage everyone to come, and to tell their friends about the culinary and fashion tours she’d be leading for English-speakers.
Some would ask her if she was nervous about such a big change. She was. But she’d never admit that. She was a risk-taker, she’d explain. That doesn’t stop just because you’re 65.
Each week my spouse and I write short essays to share with each other — under 300 words, submitted within 24 hours, and written off of a prompt.
