As I get older, I tend to look back on my life in terms of separate lives instead of stages. When we’re young, we tend to wish for the the ability to bounce back and forth through time. Can’t Christmas come tomorrow? Or, that snow day was fantastic, I wish it could happen all over again! In what I like to refer to as my “sixth” life, which is beginning today, I’m content to live in each and every moment, careful not to wish it away.

My first life was comprised of my childhood and teenage years. It was what I called a normal life because it was all I knew. Oh, sure, I noticed my friends had two parents instead of one and lived in houses instead of apartments. My mother was a strong, self-sufficient elementary schoolteacher who would not abide any of her children, of which there were four, to even remotely entertain the idea of self-pity. We had a home, we had food and we had each other, that was all we needed. I do believe my mother thought of these years as her second chance, a time to live her life the way she may not have planned, but happy to be making her own choices. I had a boyfriend in high school, a boy I planned to marry one day. My mother and I moved to California when I graduated, my siblings were older and had their own lives. I never married that boy.

So began my second life. I was out of high school, not interested in college and living in beautiful Canoga Park, CA. Well, it was beautiful to me, there were mountains on the horizon and palm trees lining the streets. In Pennsylvania, my “old” home, all one could see were trees and rolling pastures. Mom laid down the law, “Either you go to school or you get a job.” I never gave much thought to making money, I was an artist and capitalism was a necessary evil in my mind. I tried the thankless job of salesperson at a local department store, folding clothes, hanging clothes, finding clothes until I thought my brain would burst with boredom. Was I going to do this the rest of my life? College, here I come. I selected Graphic Design as my major and hunkered down for two years learning the craft. I was a star student, much to my surprise, here was a second chance for me!

A career beginning as a paste-up artist in a direct mail marketing (or junk mail catalog) company was the force of my third life. Through 15 years, I climbed the ladder of artistic merit, finally landing the coveted role of Promotional Art Director, sailing along as only a star would do, when one day I realised I was no longer a star. The company had become huge while I wasn’t looking, I was a super duper busy graphic designer with my nose buried in my markers. Suddenly, it seemed no one wanted my opinion of their latest project, no one thought I was the “go-to” girl anymore and my heart was broken along with my spirit. I was a very successful (monetarily speaking) corporate middle manager and miserable. But, oh wait, another chance had appeared in my life, a husband!

There I was, fourth life full of marriage and children, PTA, Cub Scouts, soap operas, laundry, weekly menus, supermarkets. This life was heaven and hell, baby playing in a cute little diaper and eggshell-walking when husband came home from work wondering why all the chores weren’t done. It’s still difficult to look back on this life, I still don’t really understand what went wrong but my husband and I were not at all happy for a very long time. I have theories about it, no need to go into it, I left. My loving, beautiful, concerned sister provided an escape route, another chance, she bought a house where we could live with my sons and I could make my own decisions.

The next life is what I call Limbo. No real direction, just enjoying every moment because I could relax and be myself again, but who is that? The best part of this life was I wanted to try everything, find me in my thoughts and actions, let my boys see that I’m not just a shell always smiling. I have lived a life… many lives. All because of second, third, fourth chances that I needed in order to live. It’s “the stuff of life.”  I’m looking forward to the next one, my sixth life, because it includes you, dear reader, I will get my BA in English and write, write, write for anyone who wants to read. I’m finally learning to fly on my own and isn’t that scary?