art*~Writer's Island, "My Imaginary Life"

Okay, I know I have to do the Blog Day post! I will, tomorrow. But for Tuesday's post, it is now Writer's Island. So here goes! I am publishing now, I will link it in the morning. Hope you all had a fabulous weekend...xo Blue

For Writer's Island, each Tuesday, there will be a new writing based on the prompt.

This is the inaugural prompt, 'My Imaginary Life'.

***

My life is exactly what I always thought it would be. I have two kids, a dog, a business, and a loving "what-ever-he-is". Sometimes he is referred to as husband. Sometimes boyfriend, which at my age...just doesn't work for me. Sometimes he is my partner.

Funny, growing up I never ever pictured getting married. I didn't give it one thought. My girlfriends would cut out magazine photos of wedding gowns. Talk about who they would invite, what would be on the menu for the wedding meal. I listened, nodding. Not really caring. Not really feeling what they were feeling. Couldn't wait to get back to doing other things like swimming, playing monopoly or colouring. "Who do you think you will marry?" they would ask.

"Uh, I dunno," was my sweet and honest reply.

I had no visions of Prince Charming. No delusions of grandeur. No "sweeping me off my feet". No ideas of white gowns or limos, or a live band. No candy covered almonds. No honeymoon. I could have cared less.

I thought of other things. Owning a spa. Inviting my guests in, for a glass of wine, or a hot cup of tea, and having them tell me their stories. We would discuss the latest lipstick colour. They would ask me advice. This was in my mind as a child. I was cosmopolitan. I was a city slicker. I wanted no white picket fence, with daisies lining my driveway. I wanted a penthouse apartment in the sky, overlooking the city. I wanted a Lincoln Continental, with a driver. My pet? A sleek black greyhound, with a diamond collar.

Years went by. My friends all got married. Happy happy! Oh their lives were, uh, perfect? Yeah. Perfect. Or so they would lead you to believe. I was always secretly pitied. Oh, poor Gill. Will he ever ask her to marry him? Why have they not tied the knot yet? Maybe... he doesn't love her.

They would ask me...

"Why aren't you married?"

I would always come up with something to tell them, never really knowing what the answer was. Never understanding why it needed justification.

My telephone rings the other night. My oldest friend (as in, been friends with the longest, 30 years) calls me late. It is almost time for me to go to bed.

She needs advice. Marriage advice. Things aren't going too well.

It would seem, that her imaginary life, the one she had imagined as a child, the one she ended up with, wasn't so ideal after all. Not as perfect, as she would have liked me to believe. I felt sad. I felt bad for her, that her dreams were gone. Her imagined blissful future, was no more.

I looked around. Things were, and are, almost exactly as I had imagined.

I then felt justified. I then decided it was my time to give her some sound advice, about following your heart, instead of your head. About making room for dreams, not logic.

She hung up relieved, happy to some degree that I had helped her sort out her imaginary life.

I then went back to mine, at the kitchen table, where a ton of art supplies waited patiently for me, waited to be molded into the next whim or fancy.

"Coming to bed love?" he yells down the stairs. "I'll leave the light on for you."

"Thanks hon, I'll be up in a few minutes," I holler up the stairs.

Well I don't yet have the penthouse. I don't yet own the Lincoln. But...for not being married (for 17 years), and how terrible a thing that is...I sure feel grateful for this life, my imaginary life.

***

Image; A collage I did in January of this year, the theme fits perfectly.