Cecilia Part II

Cecilia Part II

The transformation came and went. She would agree that she looked different as promised, but still felt the same. She still had the same loneliness, emptiness, longing for change as ever. Change into what, away from what, for what she could not say. But she knew that if she did not take her own life into her hands, her continued unhappiness was inevitable. She had many friends who had been in similar circumstances. Whether by their own doing through divorce, or without their say through death. Some overcome the adversity, others became reclusive. Sightings occasionally happening at grocery stores. Sightings so rare that they would be gossiped about for weeks.


She took the advice of those that triumphed and joined local dance clubs, picked up golfing, even enrolled in cooking classes. Nothing helped. Nothing could change the gnawing fact that she was going to have to fend for herself. The blinding fact that she was alone and would continue alone, only to be buried alone, with nothing other than a previous husband’s inheritance and surviving children. This notion was her inspiration, motivation, her saving grace, her biggest fear which sparked change.

She phoned the only person who she knew would be honest with her. The one person who knew her better than she knew herself even through they had never had a “grown up” conversation she could recall. She phoned her son. Her voice had that uneasy desperation only a son could sense after 38 years of brief interaction. “What do you think I should do?” She asked. That awkward question which should only be uttered from son/daughter to father/mother and never reversed.


“Buy a one-way plane ticket to Paris. It’ll change your life.” He concluded.

“A one-way?!?” She asked frantically. Obviously a little hurt from the idea of her son wanting her thousands of miles away with no sign of return.


“Desperate times call for desperate measures.” He was a man of few words, but when he spoke he knew just what to say. Just like his father. “Okay. I’ll do it.”

As the plane took off she found herself relaxed, at ease and with a sense of content she had never experienced before. This was her destiny. This was what she was born to do, but would have never realized unless she actually stepped onto the plane. She felt like a giddy 18 year old departing for their first semester at college trapped inside the weathered shell of a trampled woman. Maybe it wasn’t the idea of Paris per se. But more so, taking the first step of a very long journey which gave her hope. Hope that she had finally broken the mold of which her life of cast. The mold which so many before her had fallen victim. The mold which scared her from proving to be correct, but also from breaking at the same time. The only certainty which lay before her from this moment on was that there was a very long flight ahead of her to return on holiday.