BAG LADY

I'm not very successful. Change that. I'm not successful. Not in any way your average American recognizes. Change that. Respects.

I have an MFA, Master of Fucking Arts, for godsakes, and I make about as much as a paperboy. How did this happen?

Here I am, pushing up against yet another decade, the wrinkles taking over like rust on a fender, and some wee small voice at my left ear is still yammering about that ship. Like it might still come in, for godsakes. Talk about audacity. Change that. Delusion.

I consider the females of my age group -- the Boomer Angst Girls -- to be the pivotal generation for women. The BAGS had few existing role models to look to, beyond Wife/Mother, Old Maid, Drunken Skag. And when we looked to one another, there we were, all in the same boat. That ship again. Clueless, rudderless, we had to make it up as we went along. Chart our own course. Sink or swim.

Okay, enough with the nautical shit.

Many BAGS fell in line with one of the traditional multiple choices. Ka-Chunk! That's all she wrote. But many of us found ourselves outside the traditional box. So to speak. Suddenly we were educated. Suddenly we were single. Suddenly we were sexual, and not pregnant. And if we were pregnant, suddenly we weren't. And all this took place pre-AIDS. A whole different ball game. So to speak.

And some of us maneuvered through it all like we were shushing around moguls. Taking advantage of the terrain, but never quite taking a stand. Never quite landing anywhere. Get the degree, then leave it in the trunk of the car and wait tables. Get the job with the future, then fuck the future and play guitar. Get the divorce, then forget to read the fine print and lose everything. But save your soul.

Meanwhile, back in Baggage Claim, the carousel goes round and round.

So where does all that soul-saving and mogul-shushing and future-fucking get you? Back to Square One. A middle-aged, financially-dependent wife/mother/drunken skag. Not so much waiting for that ship, as for your lost luggage. All those things you might've done. But didn't.

In the end, our lives pass in a bombardment of minute ongoing choices. And how and what we consciously or unconsciously choose at any given moment determines our route and is influenced by...everything. Everyfuckingthing. For instance, I just chose to insert a "fucking" between "every" and "thing." How like the story of my life. How unlike my mother's.