Amy Inspired - Bethany Pierce [68]
Throughout the essay Zoë used “we” and “our,” lumping all women, career-driven and homemaker alike, into one homogeneous, guilt-tripped class of multitasking do-gooders. Despite her best efforts to maintain a consistently plural and sympathetic voice, I did not hear “we” in my head as I read. I heard “you.” You, Amy Gallagher, are killing yourself with your need to Get Things Done. You, my poor Ms. Gallagher, believe your life’s worth can be measured by the efficiency with which you complete the greatest number of chores.
Though I was more or less aware of this compulsion, I’ve never considered how visible it was. I kept grocery lists tacked to the fridge; people to e-mail lists stuck to my computer screen; Books to Read and Books Read piled in ratty notebooks on the living room shelves. And she didn’t even know about the lists from childhood: Potential Careers, Boys Kissed, Stories Written, Things to Do Before Thirty.
I forced myself to read to the conclusion:
The opportunities we have today are still somewhat new for the female sex (and I am grateful for them. God bless the 14th Amendment, the tampon, and Title IX!). It seems, however, that the knowledge of all these opportunities leaves us feeling as though our independence and self-sufficiency are precarious. We are always striving to be the best at home, at school, and at work, trying to prove we can do it all. Sooner or later we have to admit that “it all” is too tall an order.
I’m not trying to depreciate the value of hard work. But I am a firm believer in “all good things in moderation.” We must learn when to put the lists away—when to stop and watch a sunset, enjoy a bubble bath, laugh with a friend, take a walk without the need for a destination.
The first thing my mother did on getting her breast cancer diagnosis was burn her Day Planner. Has she missed appointments? Yes. Has she bowed out of more than one potentially career propelling opportunity? Yes. Has she lived every day as fully as possible? Most definitely yes. Her cancer has come back in sundry and vile ways, but every time it does, she’s prepared with an arsenal of freshly lived memories to give her strength and to remind her that life is worth fighting for. Watching her struggle for even the smallest pleasures the healthy take for granted, I’ve learned the hard way that life is too short and the world too varied to fit into carefully drafted rows of check-boxes.
So at the risk of being trite, I say: Ladies, burn the checklist, and smell the roses.
I was insulted by the unrelenting optimism of women’s magazines, by the willing suspension of self-respect required to read such nonsense. I stared at the photograph of the young woman and her sticky notes. It was one thing to see your weaknesses brought to light by a loving friend, but to be exposed in a national publication? I was so angry my hands trembled. It was ten minutes before I trusted myself enough to the party.
“There she is! Miss America,” Everett sang. He put his arm around me. “We were just going to cut the cake without you.”
“I had to go to the bathroom,” I said.
He patted me on the back. “Well, we hope it all came out okay.”
He led me to the kitchen, where everyone had gathered around the cake that read Happy B and P Day! beneath a haze of lit and quickly melting blue-white candles.
Zoë stood at the center of the circle, a birthday hat on her head. Valerie held the glowing sheet cake, beckoning me to help blow out the candles before the wax ruined the icing. Eli and Amber and Lynn were not in the room.
“Hurry!” Zoë cried, strapping a paper birthday hat on my head; it sat lopsided on my curls.
“On three!” she said and took my hand. “One, two—”
Together we shot out all thirty of the flickering lights.
“That was not a bad party,” Zoë said.
It was nearly three in the morning and we were alone. At some point in the evening, long before everyone else had begun the mass exodus, Eli had left without saying where he was going or when he was coming back. He hadn’t spoken to me the rest of the night.