Reflections of a Spinster Aunt

My father once said, “My memory of the event is perfectly clear. I cannot, however, vouch for its veracity.” While I suppose he was trying to point out there may be flaws in my own memory of an event; these days, memories are all I have. I have been sitting a long time here at this precipice of clarity and insanity; sometimes I think it may be time to let go. I fear that I already have.

I knew a woman who wanted to do a research project on successful women. I believe her question was whether women can be successful both in the office and at home. Her opening bias, however, was a mistaken premise. She assumed that a woman who has achieved professional success and who is also permanently single and childless, must have chosen one over the other. But I can say that was never the case with me. I would have been successful professionally regardless of my personal choices. It is in my nature to work hard and I have made a point of personal growth. But there is no long lost love out there for me. There is no one I left behind. No one who “got away.”

The choice between a husband and family or career was never one that truly presented itself to me. The men with whom I had relationships, with few exceptions, were grossly unsuitable for me in one way or another and our relationships never reached the stage of pledging a lifetime commitment. I was usually able to see their faults in time not to make that particular mistake, albeit seldom in time to avoid serious pain, angst, and betrayal. The betrayal was the worst. I never could understand how easy it was for someone to lie. But that they did. Relentlessly. Some choices just make themselves.

I never made a conscious choice not to have children yet I never had any. Now it’s too late for so many reasons. My age and health considerations prohibit adoption and my energy level does not exactly match the needs of a troubled foster child. I believe there is a plan for me. I don’t believe in the randomness of fate as some others do. Clearly my path does not involve motherhood. Instead, I have been blessed to touch many live and to have many lives touch me. They say the whole is equal to the sum of its parts, but that’s indadquate. The whole is equal to the product of the interactions of its parts. Thinking about the vast web of the interactions which produced me; it’s difficult to find anyone to blame or praise. Life has, and will, unfold as it should.