When There Is Time

When there is time, what then? Now she had time, the kids had their own separate lives, her husband had his own world too and she… well… she had been defined by the shape she gave to their lives as wife and mother. She’d had jobs, of course, but that’s all they ever were, just jobs, not a career. She’d always been grateful for that, seeing a career more of an absence than a thing to be longed for. It was if people who did not have enough of themselves needed something external to define them:

‘I may be the most boring person you will meet at this drinks party, but at least I am a bank manager. There may be no-one reflected back when I look in the mirror, but when I walk into the bank later, everyone there will see the manager pass by on his way into his office. I may be a non-entity, but at least my absence of shape has a name.’

She did not want that, did not want, after 25 years of service, the carriage clock engraved with the title of some position she’d occupied, some void she’d filled, some role she’d played on the corporate stage.

Thing is though, she didn’t know what she did want, and now with her kids gone and her husband living his own life, she had no choice but to find out.