I believe we never start our life over. We may turn down a different road, but we are all of the personae from our past like Russian matryoshkas, the wooden nesting dolls of decreasing size placed one inside the other.
My doll has nine incarnations. The smallest, a four-and-a-half-year-old wearing a cowgirl hat. Dad rode his horse, Mickey, and held a lead rope snapped to my pony’s bridle when we took jaunts together. One sunny, summer afternoon, I slipped from my sadde and landed in a bed of sand. I wasn’t hurt, but I was scared and started crying. Dad jumped down, picked me up and checked that I was okay. “Come on, get back on and we’ll go to the barn.”
“No. I don’t want to ride Millie any more. She threw me off.”
“She didn’t throw you off. You just fell off.” He lifted me onto my pony’s back and planted my feet firmly in the stirrups. I clung to the saddle horn with both hands while we slowly walked the animals to the stable. I’ve been getting back on the horse that threw me ever since.
The next is the 16-year-old, high schooler who my 18-year-old boyfriend left behind while he served a four-year hitch in the Navy. She is followed by the 19-year-old, office worker who spent five months in a tuberculosis sanitarium recovering from the life-threatening disease.
Ken returned home and I added two more, a wife and a mother. After our three children were in school, I found my calling as a journalist. Our kids grew up and our son made me a mother-in-law and a grandmother. The one you see is an older woman who is missing a piece of her heart. Ten years ago, my husband and I buried our eldest child who died of breast cancer.
How many dolls lurk inside you?