Years ago, I took a trip to south England with a beautiful young lady who loved romance. She loved the books, she loved the old B&W movies, she loved the passion and the possibilities of being the Jane Eyre or Catherine Earnshaw in some lost bildungsroman found by the sea. And little reason why. Love had been unkind to her.
For years she hoped for the right man to step in and sweep her off her feet. She had hundreds of hand written pages that filled pads and folders of her dream of romance. The folders were on the end tables of her apartment, by her bed, in the backseat of her car, even on her desk at work. She loved to cook elaborate meals, dressed elegantly and always seemed to have her eye on the horizon.
The trip to England was a chance to get away from the reality of two misspent lives and find priorities. But what happened next, showed me how the vast chasm between reality and fantasy can be suddenly breached.
We arrived in London and, according to her wishes, made our way to the coast. When we arrived in Dover, just before nightfall, I could see she was anxiously scanning the green countryside like she was looking for something she lost.
Pulling up to the information counter in Dover to find a suitable inn for the night, she went straight for a large wall map of the area and ran her fingers over the names of the towns.
When it was our turn, we found a B&B and as we were leaving she leaned across the counter and asked with great hope, “Can you tell me how to get to Whitecliff By The Sea.
My eyes flared at what she had just done. It took the air out of me when I realized where she was and where she was trying to go.
He paused, looked off then shook his old gray head and said, “I’ve never heard of the place.”
Her countenance fell, she leaned back, turned and walked out of the office. I knew what it meant. I knew of the place and had seen it dozens of times, in a 1947 black and white movie, “The Ghost and Mrs. Muir.”
We drove around the countryside the next day, taking in the small villages and hedgerows in the southeast counties. I heard her ask the locals the same question, “Whitecliff By The Sea?”
I had no idea that she was searching for the town when we started, maybe she didn’t either.
But when we returned back home, she was never the same. She stopped writing. The stacks of paper slowly disappeared. She even stopped cooking elaborate meals and settled into jeans and Tshirts.
We lost touch when I went off to college. She married a man who made very good money and she never worked another day in her life.
We keep in touch, twice a year for birthdays. But never more than that. And yet, she does seem happy in her practical, functional life. From what she tells me, she wants for nothing, her husband loves her and she is secure.
Is this happiness? Is this success? Is this a life fulfilled? Who’s to say. My measuring stick is not hers. Or yours!
Therefore, it’s no one’s business to say if you are a success. For others to view your life as incomplete, is judgement. We are allowed midlife changes, adapting to our own changing tastes, losses, shifting hopes, new dreams.
And anyone who tells you otherwise, is envious.
