Born in Brooklyn, was there when the Dodgers were, too.  Came into the world three weeks before U.S.A entered WWII.  Married too young (didn't a lot of us?)  Spent middle childhood in the South, as in Way Down South, spoke like a southener, lost it to NY, had half a college education, moved West with hubby, had two kids, moved some more and more and...eventually repotted myself with a SO but the roots didn't take, started the half of a college education all over again, learned Spanish, learned Salsa and other ballroom dancing, taught English to Japanese, taught English to Spanish-speaking immigrants, worked in a library, did longterm cargiving for parents.  Now I'm sort of relaxing.

How did you get to where you are now?

Grit, ignorance and a strenuous effort to grow up.

How do you see yourself differently now than you did 10 years ago?

Despite my brain playing hide-and-seek, I have greater self awareness and am less fearful of the future in spite of having more to fear with encroaching age.  But somehow, I feel more secure than I ever did.

Where do you see yourself in 10 years?

10 YEARS????  I'm not THAT secure...yet.  But, maybe my blood sugar levels will be better (I'm working on it) and maybe I'll have read more of the books in my bookcase, re-import all the songs on my ipod that I lost, and move to a retirement home where someone else will do the shopping and cooking.  And maybe I'll have learned to not worry about the books I haven't read, or that which I cannot change.  Maybe.

When you were a young teen, hardly able to project an image of yourself as an adult, I was a shadow to you, some barely discernible composite of Natalie Wood and Sandra Dee.  Now you, child, are a shadow to me, albeit a stronger image than the one that you once projected.  I regret that I was not able to tell you that you mattered as much as anyone, that your opinions and preferences were valid.  I regret...but it doesn't matter now, does it?  All of that you now know, child shadow in a woman's body, in a woman's psyche.  You didn't have me then, but I have you now.

Everyone in my family, who showed me how to be, and how not to be.  My dog Ginger, who, in jumping high to abscond with a turkey drumstick from the Thanksgiving platter, gave new meaning to the words "Go For It!"