Connie

I have written a lot about my own life. OK. Mostly about my own experiences and how I have handled them - both when I succeed and when I go down in flames. (Maybe I am just that ego-centric). People who have read my stuff may remember mean girl Connie - the perfectly groomed but spoiled little princess in my neighborhood growing up. She plays a big role in those stories and is often the focal point for the 'moral' of the story.

This weekend I was out eating with my mom when Connie's mom walked by. I said hello and we began talking. Connie did indeed go on to the perfect life her mother had helped her start. Married BIG money (I mean major BIG money). Had 4 kids. Seemed to have the perfect life. But her mom then surprised the shit out of me when she told me that Connie had been diagnosed at 36 with breast cancer and died 5 years into her struggle.

As much as I hated Connie growing up, I could see her mom's pain still seven years after the fact. And I wondered about a 4 year old daughter who will never know her mom. In that moment, I felt my heart shift to a more open place where Connie is concerned. I felt ashamed that I had held on to that snarky child's view of this person long into my adulthood. Don't get me wrong, Connie was a very mean child - deliberately cruel even. But I suspect she didn't know how to be anything else. Perhaps she was even a mean adult. I don't know. And it isn't important. It never was.

Today I am grateful because I have learned to see someone with my adult eyes instead of always thru the mirrors of my child's eyes and in doing so have found a place of compassion. There wont be any more stories about Connie - at least not like those in the past. I simply choose not to remember her that way. 

And to all my women friends - go get a mammogram dammit!!!