According to an essay I wrote in eighth grade, I wanted to grow up to become an airline stewardess or a simultaneous translator for the United Nations or a circus trapeze artist. As I got older, I began to realize that these initial dreams were unlikely to get fulfilled, at least not in the way my thirteen-year-old self had imagined. I might need to create alternatives.
For starters, stewardesses (the profession then was almost entirely women) were required to have 20/20 vision without eyeglasses. In those days before the availability of contact lenses, my severe myopia would disqualify me as a prospective flight attendant. Later in high school, I began to meet other students who had been raised bilingually. It gradually sank in to me that my simultaneous translation prospects were slim. Regardless of how much I studied, I was unlikely to become as proficient as others who’d learned two languages (or sometimes more) from birth. Finally, although I’d been a “queen of the jungle gym” in elementary school and loved going to the circus, I began to appreciate how much additional training I’d need to reach professional level on a trapeze. I also noticed that over time circus crowds were getting sparser. More and more “big tops” were folding.
So I began formulating “Plan B’s.” Even if I couldn’t become a stewardess, I might be able to arrange other ways to travel widely as an adult. I might not be able to do simultaneous translations, but perhaps I could teach foreign language skills to those with less exposure than I had. I might not ever become a circus entertainer, but I could create verbal sketches and skits to amuse people.
By the time I completed college, I’d had my first international work experience—preparing and selling Belgian waffles at a bilingual snack bar at the 1967 World’s Fair in Montreal, Québec, Canada. I’d enrolled in an advanced program to get a teaching credential for French language instruction. From Montreal, I’d sent a summer’s worth of weekly humorous travel sketches to our small-town Maryland newspaper.
I was about to become a newlywed, at a time when American young men were susceptible to being drafted into the military. Some of them were then sent to participate in a far-off war in Vietnam. A few days before our wedding, my groom-to-be got his notice to report for induction into the army. Rats! Time for “Plan C.”
My only future brother-in-law was already serving in Vietnam. Worst case, my future husband might soon join him. Knowing my tendency to “awfulize,” I figured I could keep my stress level somewhat in check by staying busy. I applied for and got a part-time clerical job in addition to my full-time academic course load.
Several weeks later, a surprise phone call from my now-husband relayed most welcome news: a minor congenital back abnormality had reclassified him as less fit for military service. He could return home and resume his non-military career. “Plan D” found both of us happy to be together, but very, very busy. I made it through a hellish school year of teaching beginning French to 187 rambunctious adolescents, then embarked on “Plan E,” what turned out to be a lengthy career in commercial information systems.
Over the course of the next fifty years or so, I fulfilled additional alternate versions of my adolescent dreams: for a couple of years in my thirties, I was on the staff of the U.N. in a French-speaking African country; in my forties, I created holiday programs spoofing local politics for an area non-profit; in my fifties, I survived a serious health scare partly by becoming more adept at yoga and a graceful Asian exercise practice called “qi gong.” I also traveled widely and spent multiple semesters teaching English as a foreign language in rural China.
At my current life stage, I get much incoming mail either promoting various burial services or suggesting worthy causes I should include in my “estate plans.” As the end of my planning alphabet approaches, I face ongoing uncertainties and anxieties, including pandemics, climate change, massive human migrations, escalating housing costs and homelessness. My coping skills are sometimes challenged. I hope that younger generations will expand newer coping tools and use them wisely.
Should anyone ask, I’d suggest that it’s great both to have dreams and to have some “plan B’s” (and C’s, D’s, etc.). Life is apt to adjust your original plans over and over again.
Jinny's Occasional Poems 