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The chance to reinvent yourself


August 30, 2007 - 11:50 p.m.

Something I've noticed since Suzanne moved down six months ago -- and yes, it's been six months already, almost to the day -- is that the house is back to being an actual home again. It's small things, like not having computer parts on the couch, knowing nobody sits there. It's having actual food in the refrigerator, as opposed to condiments and soda.

It's good.

I talked to my aunt (my father's youngest sister) for a long time last night, basically until the battery on her cordless phone gave out. Good stuff, mostly, stuff about how it was growing up with him, and how things were with their father and stepmother. She and I got back in touch a few years ago and have mostly emailed each other, but after Suzanne and I visited her this summer, we've talked several times. I get the sense she has a real hunger to talk to me, to my sister, to my older brother, to get some sense of what my father's life was like after he left Chicago for good in 1954.

I think everyone needs a chance to reinvent themselves in their life, leave some things behind and be the person you see yourself to be instead of the person those around you have figured you've become. Going into the Navy in 1954 and not coming back was my father's way of doing that. If that helped him live a life more like what he knew he wanted rather that how he'd have ended up otherwise, good.

I've had that opportunity a couple of times in my life and used those opportunities wisely. I've seen the results when people don't do it when they need to.

The new kitten is now prowling around the floor wrestling with USB cords.


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