I am the youngest of three children. My brother, Dan, is almost 10 years my senior. In between the two of us is my sister, Laura. Danny was already growing into his rebellious teenage years when I was a small child; and Laura was an extremely girly-girl - therefore, I grew in to the roll of the tomboy.
I climbed trees, beat up boys, brought snakes in the house to show my mom, and pulled worms around the block in my wagon. I was the kid that dreaded bath-time and relished every opportunity to get back outside to play basketball or spray paint the weeds behind the garage with the spray cans that “mysteriously” disappeared from my Father's shelf in the garage.
My Dad enjoyed having both the Princess and the Pauper. Laura could be the daughter who would simply have wear gloves if she played basketball, fearing dirtying her hands, and I could be the daughter whom he could call on to move the washing machine up from the basement.
Looking back on my life, it's clear to see that I have always been a mixture of sorts. I have always wished that I could wear skirts, or dresses and heels all the time - like June Cleaver, yet I also know what to check for first if my car doesn't start, how to clean my battery terminals, and how to open the back door of a semi-trailer when it's frozen shut. Instead of finding myself full blown on one side of the spectrum, I teeter at a safe middle ground.
However, my dreams have always been the one thing that I've held the dearest to; the one thing that I have hidden in my heart in the most “girly” of ways. In a society and upbringing where I was constantly taught that a woman could and should be whatever she wanted to be; and now at a time when a woman came very close to holding the highest office in the land - I still have no desire for any of that, yet I cling to the dream that I had as a child. The dream of being a mom.
No glitz. No glamour. No payment, and very few rewards. I still long for it. I truly do.
Days of crying babies and fighting to maintain a semi-clean home in the midst of training my children and preparing a homemade meal for my husband to come home to, these are the things that excite my heart. My dreams are a conundrum to the working woman, who strives to earn her keep while I quite securely long to build a home.
My hopes and dreams remained hidden in my heart, collecting dust - known to but a few, in the grind of everyday life. The years of inculcated propaganda, the working woman, the corporate dream, never tainted the treasure that I held to myself.
As any grown person soon discovers - life is not all that we dreamed it would be in our youth. If that were the case, I would be choreographing dance numbers right now and working as a regular on Saturday Night Live! No. The reality is that we get what we are given. We're free to pursue things in our own might, out of our comfort zones, and then we must deal with life as it happens; or we just sit there and let it pass us by.
So for now, I hike up my Buckle jeans, toss on a t-shirt, followed closely by one of my endless supply of hooded sweatshirts. I lace up my black and white Airwalks and am out the door. Back to the same routine that I have found myself in for the past 9 years, being a woman in a man's world, sitting in the dispatch office of a trucking company. The only thing separating me from “the boys” is that occasionally, I escape into my dream job by merely placing lipstick on my mouth and closing my eyes.
