Only the beginning

Written for the Fifty Things contest, it is a true story.....

"Ah..." I breath as I begin to unwind in my chair that faces the fireplace in my home that I own after a long day of photography. I captured a blushing bride's face in print on the Galveston Island this day.

Yes, there is the beginning of things I have accomplished in my young life. I own a home, but not before I have lived in four rent homes previously.

Those places all make me smile for in those homes I have had the money to travel overseas, not once but twice and then again.

I have handed candy to El Salvadorian children who have never tasted the likes of the sugar we Americans indulge in and throw away.

I have dressed in a funny clothes and made funny faces at children whose bodies are coursing with the raging sickness of TB as they are given medical shots to help them last one more week.  I have cried tears of bitterness as some of the group who went with us to El Salvador wanted to leave the make shift hospital early so they would have time to go souvenir shopping....

Are we still counting?

Oh, of course, number twenty-five, I have flown in a hot air balloon. Oh yes I have. I enjoyed all ten minutes of it as I waved down at my loyal husband who spent a fortune to let me have such an adventure.

And I have apologized a million times to him for making him speed to the Showplace to see the latest movie and not getting there on time because, well, he was stopped for speeding.

Oh and yes, this one makes me chuckle and blush. I have peed in a coke bottle because we were stuck in traffic behind hundreds of vehicles trying to get past the burning Mustang whose owners will never pee again. That is the sombering part.

Are we still counting? Well, I can say all fifty things are not sweet at all. But the sweetest is having sex (or is it making love?) for the first time with my husband, the bittersweetest is seeing the pregnancy test being negative and then one day seeing it postive.

Using no painkillers and having my firstborn daughter, Magalena. Her wetness and innocence coating all of my body.

Ah yes, that never comes close to all I have done in my young life but if fifty is what you ask for, then here will be the most of my life....crammed into but fifty.

 

Reviews

[Salvatore Buttaci]

Very clever! Good story.

Sal

[Collette]

I loved this....it's life and it is real. It was like speed-reading a heart-warming novel. I love the brutal honesty, and the emotions shining through each and every different instance in your life. How wonderful, to know that some live as you do. Thanks for sharing....