Just more proof, I should be living in a different era

I'm really a middle aged woman at heart. You could probably tell this solely from my fashion decisions. Today, I'm wearing a green top with puffy shoulders and cuffed capris with black scandals. It is even more evident when I'm having coffee with my vibrantly dressed roomie or my young at heart best friend (who says she acts like a grandma, but I tend to disagree).

I watch television with my mother, an actual middle aged woman. I actually go shopping with my mom and tell her what would look best, and we share clothes from time to time. This is odd because we have different body types and I'm a good four inches taller than she is. She borrows my clothes mostly come to think of it.

I like James Taylor and Carole King along with other musicians that usually find on the play list of the Baby-Boomers. I actually went to the Troubadour Reunion Tour for JT and CK, and I was one of the few young adults there.

I read classic literature more than works recently published. My two favorite authors are Oscar Wilde and Jane Austen both who worked in the nineteenth century for the most part. I have a thing for vintage things that I can't explain, because I have this weird aversion to previously used things (but that's a different crazy story for a different boring time).

I like more youthful things as well, but for the most part I prefer things that my parents seem to enjoy. I'm just missing the wisdom and maturity that comes with these refined tastes of mine.

A long line of little bag-of-hell women

I am a bag-of-hell woman. It is not something I have control over. My great aunts both were very strong women that would do anything they had to do to get what they wanted. Frances ran for a seat on her town council when it was unheard of for women to hold office (at least in NC), while Verona had a technician job that was predominantly held by men. I'm also some sort of cousin with the first woman to be a chief justice in the state of NC, Susie Sharp.

My grandmother does not really have this trait, because those aunts I was referring to were my grandfather's sisters. My mother, aunt, and I , however, did inherit this slightly frightening personality trait.

I'm not abrasive or anything (most of the time). I'm polite and generally a nice person, but don't even think about getting in my way, because I will mow you down. It won't be pretty. It's one of those strong women things I share with my mother (and a whole long list of other women that look kind of like me).

You may mistakenly believe I have some sort of feminist leaning because of all those women, but it's quite the opposite. I never felt as if I couldn't do anything I damn well pleased because of those crazy ladies. I know I'm standing on the shoulders of giants and they shattered the glass ceiling before I even got a chance to look at it, but I don't think they would want me to think that I would ever have to struggle with sexism.

Isn't that the point of equal rights? That no one even sees the lines anymore? Because I defiantly don't see the lines. I don't see them between gender, race, religion anything. We're all different and whatever, but we're all capable of the same basic functions. Anyone can be smart or play a sport or fix a car. That's just the way I feel, and maybe I'm the only one.

But it was that long line of Bag-of-hell women that told me that we're all just people, and we all are just people.


Here's a little anecdote about great aunt Frances:
When she bought new clothes, she would bring them home in laundry bags and take the tags off. Then when her husband, Charlie asked her if she had just bought it when he saw her wear them, she would reply :"Charlie, you old dog! I've had these clothes forever. I can't believe you have never noticed them before!"

I'm genetically inclined to stir up trouble. I do and say anything I want, because that's the way it is in my family.

"Yeah Mom, I know..."

You know how when you are so similar to someone you begin to dislike them, because they remind you of yourself? All the women in my family might as well be clones of one another. We don't look the same, but that is the end of the list of things that are different about us. I can't spend more than an hour with more than one of them at a time without getting a little annoyed, and I know that's all on me. I just wish i didn't have the future right in front of me and talking to me. I'm going to be exactly like my mom. I mean, I'm a little more laid back than she is, but not by much. I love my mom and my grandma and my aunt, but we have a family vacation coming up, and I don't know if I can get through it without taking up a serious drinking problem.