This is a confessional, ladies, so prepare yourselves for some shameful admissions.
I am a smart cookie. I know my way around a book. I have opinions about important things that I share freely. I love to debate and I can support my arguments with the best of them. I am tough as nails. I’ve buried a child and still manage to put lipstick on in the morning. Really, what more can I say than that that demonstrates my mettle?
But despite all of these credentials, I am still a total wife. Circa 1958 wife. Stand behind your man kind of wife. Sigh. I don’t mean to be, but I am. I rely on my husband to change the lightbulbs, solve all my computer problems, and pay the bills. I don’t know nearly enough about our finances and today I am in panic mode. Today, ladies, I have to fly through Atlanta airport. Alone. Good Lord that makes me anxious.
You see what I mean about a confessional? It shames me that I can describe myself as I did above and still, despite the aforementioned mettle, I can be whimpering on the inside that somehow, all alone, I will need to navigate the ATL all by my lonesome this afternoon. Betty Friedan, the same Betty Friedan that gave the commencement address at my alma mater, is rolling in her grave. Gloria Steinham assertively requests that I no longer use the word feminist to describe myself. My astute carpool mate wondered if that is why I wore my prettiest dress to travel in today – – to make it that much easier for strangers to help a gal out in the Big Bad Airport.
She’s not wrong, my carpool mate, and the irony that this dress is a modern version of a 1950s housewife at the market shirtdress, complete with nipped in waist and a-line skirt is so not lost on me.
Okay. The recovering Catholic in me feels a bit better. I got to suck it up. Woman up, if you will. I can do this. I. Can. Do. This.
But, seriously, send up some prayers for me around dinnertime and send them down to ATL. That includes you, Mr. Mary Tyler Mom, dear GPS of mine.
Mary Tyler Mom 