Kathleen McCall:
Occasional�� Muse�

2002-07-06 - 9:54 p.m.

Missed Connections

My kids called from their vacation, and left me a cell phone number; so I called them, but we got cut off, and when I called back I got the voicemail. So I waited but they didn't call me again, and then I went back online to e-mail them and they called and left a different number, and when I disconnected and called THAT, it was a fax line.

And then I had just written this howl about being a middle-aged woman, and when I checked my HotMail account I had a message: "Enjoy Being Twenty Again," and I got confused trying to figure out if that meant I DID enjoy being twenty and might get to do it again, or if I DIDN'T enjoy it and perhaps might be given a second chance to get it right.

When phone connections feel like metaphors for your life, you might consider going to bed. When HotMail spam becomes existential, you should have gone to bed an hour ago.

I don't know exactly what I was doing at twenty, but I'm sure I was intense about it. Some of those were great years and some of them sucked, although it didn't really divide up by years, more like eras marked by the movement of men and jobs and living spaces in and out of my life. Yeah, that was the apartment on such-and-such street, that was when I was seeing so-and-so, that was when I took a promotion to this-and-such. But I'm not sure exactly which so or that or such went with which year.

Not going back anyway. Don't have the right clothes any more.

I have a friend who is very good with dates, and she could help me figure it out if I wanted to. She could remember what SHE was doing, and then together we could figure out what I was doing in relation to that, and then I'd know. But I didn't open the e-mail and I most likely can't afford to go back even at the undoubtedly Special Offer Just For You Kathleen_McCall prices, so I don't suppose it really matters.

If you offered me my thirties - I wonder if they'd be cheaper? - I could probably tell you no thanks right off the bat. Thirties were marriage and kids, but they were also quitting my job and the failing of my Dad's health and my divorce and I even had to sell my sports car; no, no thank you. I mean, I love those kids, but if I went back I'd have to have them all over again just to get to keep them when I got back to now, and I'm just not sure I could have them again knowing what I know from having them the first time around; the whole thing gets rather confusing.

But my twenties I'm not very sure about. I know that if I went back, one thing I'd do would be to save a shitload of money. "No! Put that down, you don't need that! You won't even HAVE it in ten years!" Then I could come back here and spend it. It would have earned interest and everything.

Couple things I probably wouldn't do. "Ohhhhh no, that got you in ALL kinds of trouble last time you came through here." But maybe that would mess with the space-time continuum and when I got back here I'd be living in Poughkeepsie or something. Hard to say.

There's probably an economy package where you don't get to do anything different, just go do the same old stuff you already did all over again. Maybe I could afford that one. But then you'd really have to remember what you did, to see if you'd rather do it over again than, say, visit Molokai. I've always wanted to go to Molokai, and I'm quite sure I didn't go there at twenty.

So anyway I really wish I had gotten to talk to my kids about THEIR vacation, and I don't like missing connections, and I don't like missing my kids, and I have to remember to tell them when they get home: make your twenties the best and greatest you can, because you just never know if you'll get to do them again.

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