WILLIAMSVILLE — There was a brief period during my childhood when my father stopped commuting to work. He set up a crude office in the basement of our suburban home and called himself a consultant, which perplexed me.
I was about 6 years old and had understood that my father was an engineer, although - alas! - not of the Casey Jones variety. In addition to a large desk, swivel chair, and black telephone, he had a sign posted on the wall, which I didn't understand.
It read, “If I had my life to live over, I'd make the same mistakes, only sooner.”
Drilled from an early age to come up with an answer to “What are you going to be when you grow up?” - the incessant question adults always posed - I inevitably developed the misconception that one grew up to be something definite.
In high school I wanted to be a psychiatrist until I dissected a cat in biology class and crossed medical school off my list. I eliminated psychology after I realized my interest was in humans, not rats. I attended college in the 1970s, during the great wave of feminism that promised passage of the Equal Rights Amendment, and so eliminated marriage as a career objective.
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Even while I was narrowing down the possibilities of what I was going to be, I was nevertheless in a hurry to get there.
When I was 12, I wanted to be 16, so I could drive, and when I was 16, I owned ID saying I was 18, so I could drink. By the time I was 25, however, I was no longer in such a rush to grow up or grow older. Back then, 30 was considered the end of the road.
Well here I am in my mid-fifties, a grown-up who has run a business, written a book, taught literature, kept bees, slaughtered chickens, and raised daughters. I've been married going on 25 years. With the kids fledged and tentatively independent, I now have the uninterrupted writing time I've always craved.
Oh, sure, there are some down sides. Most notably, I've traded regular visits to the obstetrician for frequent visits with my orthopedic surgeon. But even that's not so bad.
And I'm beginning to understand that sign on my dad's office wall: If I had my life to live over, I'd want to make the same mistakes sooner, because I'd be in a rush to achieve this wonderful passage called middle age.