A Journey Within

1

 Lisa Hanson was tired of her dead end job. She'd been manager of the local branch of the Carol Huggin women's store for the past ten years. During this time she'd been cheated on, divorced, left almost homeless and virtually penniless. For all intents and purposes, even though she was married for twenty-two years, she basically raised her two children into adulthood alone. Now that they were grown, married and gone from her home, she often found herself wondering about her own life. Wondering what was next for her or if there was anything beyond this mess, or was it possible that what she had now, was what she would always have. And that thought was depressing.

Every day seemed the same. Wake up, go to work, and deal with spoiled customers as well as snotty employees. Far too many times, she found herself pondering the world without her. Lately, it seemed that it took more and more effort to get out of bed in the mornings, and that included her days off. Her children rarely called, she only saw them every couple months and that was only if she called them first having to practically beg them to take time from their schedules to fit her in. It seemed whenever she had a day off, her friends always had plans with their families. A new man in her life? Huh! She didn't have the energy to try to meet one, let alone go out on a date or two, not with her life. Hell, once she even tried a singles bar and went with a friend. Once. Disaster was too mild a word to describe that experience. After that farce, she decided that she could quit looking. That if it was meant to be, a relationship would find her. Yeah, right.

Lisa felt like giving up. She often fantasized about packing up and running away and living from town to town with small, responsibility free jobs she could easily quit and quickly replace. Of course she never would. Lisa had always been the responsible one. Even in childhood, she was the voice of reason. The one her friends counted on to copy homework from when they were too lazy to do their own. The one who would be there at home on a Friday night when her friends were out breaking curfew and finding marvelous adventures as only teenagers could. When as a young adult her friends would talk her into going out, she was always the designated driver. Always. it wasn't hard to slip away from these one sided friendships, one by one maintaing peripheral contact.

In her marriage, which was supposed to be fifty-fifty, or at the very least seventy-thirty, she made sure the bills were paid on time. She made sure the kids had all their homework and chores finished, bathed them and put them to bed. Even when her husband ran off, Lisa never gave in, just kept going in order to keep everyone else going. Yes, Lisa would always be the responsible one. But late at night as she tossed and turned and sleep evaded her, she always came back to the what ifs?

 So today, when after yet another day of problems at work, Lisa returned home to find stuck in her screen door, an invitation from Ada, the only neighbor she ever spoke to, saying the woman had signed for a registered letter and asked her to come to dinner at seven if she had no other plans. She could pick the letter up then. "That's nice," she said to no one but herself though she had no intention of going. After the day she had, there was no way she wanted to spend an hour or so listening to her eighty-one year old neighbor complain about her daytime television stories. She loved Ada Miller like another mother, but there were some days she couldn't listen to another word about fictional characters, and this was definitely one of those days.

Lisa changed out of her work clothes, threw on a pair of purple, comfy sweatpants and oversized sweater and tried to relax with a little non thought provoking, mindless television. But the draw of the registered letter weighed heavily on Lisa's mind the rest of the evening so much so, that at five minutes to seven, she found herself knocking on Ada's door.

"Come in, come in," the older woman said, "dinner is on the table. How was your day?" asked Ada though as usual she did not wait for an answer and as she walked through the small apartment living room to the kitchen/dining room expecting Lisa to follow and talking all the way though Lisa had no idea what she said. For an octogenarian, Ada Miller had no problem leaving an overworked, overtired forty nine year old Lisa in her dust, especially one who had spent the day with her twenty something, smart assed employees.