accidental feminist

to dream the impossible dream July 3, 2006

I ran into an old aquaintance from high school today. She’s two years older than me, and has two children (a bit younger than Bassie and Dina). “What are you doing?” I ask. “I’ve got the two kids…being a stay-at-home mom…and I live in Deerfield!” The varied and conflicting emotions that fill me at this point are mind-boggling: guilt (”Why did I go back to work so soon?”), contempt (”Is that all you plan on doing with your life?”), amusement (”The wheel comes full circle…”), kinship (”Let us present our young children to each other as a symbol of the bond of motherhood that inextricably ties us, one to another.”). Instead, I said “Well, Happy Birthday” in response to the two large ice cream cakes she had just purchased, to which she replied, “Oh, these? They’re for a barbeque…Nice seeing you”.

All in all a very successful rununion*.

* My latest contribution to the Sniglets dictionary: run union, n. a briefl crossing of paths with someone from high school or college for whom you had neither a particular affinity nor contempt. (v. runune, adj. rununy)