For a high school graduation gift, I received a large navy blue Samsonite. Zipping the suitcase closed the night before I left for college felt like packing away my childhood. All those chances to dream, play, and wander, my audaciousness, smothered between argyle knee socks and rag wool sweaters. It was time to get serious and follow the newly blazed trail for girls. College, marriage, children, work. I could have it all.
Not that anyone asked if that is what I wanted.
No one had ever asked me what I wanted to be, and if they had, I wouldn’t have had an answer other than this—to marry Robert Redford. The Jerimiah Johnson meets Hubble Gardner version.
My mother said, “Learn to type.”
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