Nobody Is Ever Ready

When I was five years old my mother announced we were moving.

“Pack your things,” she said. I had just walked in the door and was sweating.

“What?” Dizzy, the feeling of falling. Raggedy Ann hung wearily off the windowsill.

“Daddy got another job, and we are leaving for Ohio. No time.”

We moved around pretty frequently in those days.

Each time, I wasn’t ready.

* * *

“Come with me,” the principal said, taking my hand.

“Where are we going?”

The sun shone brightly and directly on my face. The hallway felt long.

“You did very well on that IQ test,” he said. “You’re skipping a grade.”

The rest of that year is a total blank…except for one thing.

Zayde taught me how to ride a bike.

Let go before I was ready.

* * *

“What the hell is sociology?” “Is that like being a social worker?”

“I don’t know,” I said. Marx, Weber, Durkheim.

It was all a blur.

Graduate school, before I was ready.

* * *

On the day I met my husband I’d just come home from a really bad date.

“Men suck! I hate men! I am never getting married,” and I slammed and slammed and slammed my way through the apartment.

And then I heard his voice on the other end of the line.

“Oh my G-d,” I told my mother. “I think I’m getting married.”

* * *

It is a list and it does not seem to end:

Until one day I woke up and finally realized — that my greatest thrill?

It’s the thrill of not being ready.

_____

All opinions are my own and not those of my agency or the federal government as a whole. Photo by Clemens V. Vogelsang via Flickr.