Wednesday's Words on a Friday

 The original Words for Wednesday was begun by Delores and eventually taken over by a moveable feast of participants when Delores had computer troubles. Sadly, Delores has now closed her blog forever due to other problems.

The aim of the words is to encourage us to write. A story, a poem, whatever comes to mind.

If you are posting an entry on your own blog, please let us know so we can come along to read it and add a few encouraging words.

This month the words/prompts are supplied by Elephant's Child and can be found here

This week's words/prompts are: 

1. alias 

2. garden 

3. rivers 

4. enjoy 

5. little 

6. you 

and/or: 

1. unusual 

2. life 

3. walls 

4. serenity 

5. mapped 

6. madness

Here is my story:

Madness was mapped out for me if I followed the path of my ancestors, so I gave up the rat race and moved to a little plot near where two rivers met, here I planted a garden with vegetables, another with flowers, and now enjoy a life of peaceful serenity.

It was an unusual choice, given the family I'd been born into, with generations before me all strongly into being the best, the fastest, the richest, whatever it was, they all had to be the very top of the heap. The fighting, back-stabbing, snarky insults and so on had led more than a few to spend countless hours on psychiatrist couches begging to learn why they were "never good enough", why they were so pushed by parents, why they in turn became pushy parents. 

I reached a turning point when upon becoming vice president of the company I worked for, my mother hissed at me, "only VICE president?" Her sneer alone told me I hadn't done well enough, no words were needed.  I told her I would spend Christmas visiting Great Grandma Alice, and hurried away to hide my tears. 

Arriving at the nursing home, Great Grandma Alice took one look at my face and knew immediately what the trouble was. She told me I was different, reminding me of all the childhood times when I hadn't cared who saved the most pocket money, who won the school races on competition days. "You are cut from a more gentle fabric, Sarah. You might enjoy the race, but don't care if you don't win. You are like me. I must have told you at some point how your great grandfather Maxwell was so disappointed in my lack of drive and that is why he divorced me as soon as I gave him a son to carry on the name." 

"I moved here, to this little village, and used an alias for many years so that people wouldn't connect me to the family. I've been very happy here and now in my final years, with only these four walls around me, I am still happy. You can be happy too, away from the fierceness of struggling to be 'top dog'." "I'm glad I came to see you Granny, you have always made me feel better about myself and about life in general. I know I will never understand the striving to be top of the heap, and what good does it do any of them anyway? They are never happy. Cousin Jeff has just bought his third holiday mansion, this one on the coast of Spain, but none of them ever takes enough time to go away for a holiday!"

"What will you do now dear?" asked Granny. "I'm leaving the family," I said. "I've found a lovely little place near here, a cottage in the bend where the two rivers meet and I plan to live there and visit you as often as I can."


Comments

  1. An enchanting story River, very well done. I can relate quite strongly to it.

    XO
    WWW

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. WWW; thank you, I thought of your "saltbox" cottage when I wrote it.

      Delete
  2. Hooray for Sarah. I am sure that her life will be much, much better - and suggests that she ditches that vice-presidency too...
    Unless it is something which brings her pleasure, and pride in herself.

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    Replies
    1. Elephant's Child; I suspect she will step aside from the Vice-Presidency and focus on her great Grandma Alice and her new little cottage, where she soon learns to sell veggies and flowers at the local markets.

      Delete
  3. I would definitely do what Sarah does if I was in her footstep. Who needs to be top dog anyway?

    Have a lovely day.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. lissa; thank you for coming. I certainly wouldn't want to be top dog, far too much pressure and responsibility there.

      Delete
  4. Top dogs always have a crick in their necks from looking over their shoulder. Thank goodness for Great Grandma Alice. Never been a competitive person either.

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    Replies
    1. Arkansas Patti; I'm glad there was a Great Grandma Alice to pass on the non-competitive gene that saves Sarah. The simple lives are often the happiest.

      Delete
  5. I'm glad Sarah chose to be her own person, rather than run with the big dogs, fighting for supremacy.

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    Replies
    1. Val; me too. Someone needs to be the first to break the stranglehold of the family.

      Delete
  6. Yes. How fortunate that she went to visit Alice before the struggle she did not need, did her in. lovely story.

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    Replies
    1. Charlotte; Sarah visits Alice often, Alice is her inspiration.

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  7. Lovely tale, you are doing what your Granny did :)

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  8. It is always great when we can become our own selves. Great story River.

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    Replies
    1. Granny Annie; too many of us try to be the person everyone expects them to be, being ourselves is much more freeing.

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  9. Beautiful, sad story. Could be mine, a bit. My parents always worked their butts of, but were they happy?
    I quit (I don´t rely on Hubby´s money) and I feel best. New stuff I maybe´d only tried when being retired and guess, a friend said she thinks it all happens for a reason, also so that I could grow the way I did with cooking/baking/sewing/art.

    Your story just proves that.
    That friend, btw, is in the beginning of the story I joined you in this :-)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Iris Flavia; I see it as a happy story, the Sarah character is leaving the toxic family and living a better life of her own choosing.

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  10. Indeed, in the end, no one really wins those games. Excellent story.

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    Replies
    1. messymimi; so true, but as long as they have more, more, more they think they are on top, forgetting that greed needs to be balanced with other things.

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