Not in This Lifetime

The fact that I read too many trashy novels, mostly targeted at the 13-to-17-year-old age group, has made me a little overly angsty. Sometimes I record events as they're happening to me in cleverly compact catch phrases, mentally adding punctuation and quotation marks. Then I begin to imagine the rest of the story, just to make things fit a little better. If I actually start out the day by inadvertently straightening my bangs in such a way that they stick out at a 90 degree angle from my forehead, I mentally jump in the shower and dry my hair again, perfectly this time, which makes me late for class. I can't find a parking spot in my usual place and have to park in the commuter lot, which is halfway across campus from my class. As I'm hurrying, I trip and get mud all over myself (it's been raining, although not on me), but it looks cute on me, and as I'm getting back up onto my feet, a tall shadow blocks the scorching sun and a gorgeous guy with long eyelashes and a penchant for Polo's reaches down to help me.

In reality I flipped out at the idea of being less than 10 minutes early, grabbed a headband and forgot my umbrella.

It's not really the idea of the gorgeous guy that does it for me in that scenario. What's more appealing is imagining that I'm a different kind of girl; one who is relaxed and confident and has bouncy, shiny hair. Other girls see me and think ooh, look at her! I have to know where she bought that cute top. But when they ask me, I can't remember. It's not the shirt they want, it's my effortless style. But that's not on sale yet at the Gap, so there can only be one of me. Suckers.

Another daydream takes over as I'm walking from one class to another. The bell tower on campus is ringing out a melody I vaguely recognize and label as classical. The temperature is biting (for someone born in Miami), and as I breathe in the cold air burns me, but in a good way. I'm wearing a wool sweater, and the other native Floridians around me are wearing boots and heavy jackets. I'm walking through a beautiful part of campus, filled with red brick buildings and thick trees, and it's easy for the context of the situation to wash out of my mind. I'm walking through Boston. No, somewhere more collegial. Pennsylvania? I have only postcard notions of what these places are really like, but that seems like enough. I'm on a northern college campus, somewhere busy, and I'm speed walking to meet a professor in his office, who wants my input on an important medical -- no, psychological -- study he is conducting. Sure, maybe I am only 21-years-old, but it's obvious to everyone that I have a brilliant mind and a keen sense of observation, not to mention a killer body and a perfected aura of aloofness. I wish I had time to listen to the a Capella group that's taken up on the quad, but as anyone can see, I'm running a bit late.

Why do I constantly fantasize about being late? Is it because I want someone to cry out, flooded with relief as I try to enter unobtrusively through the back door, Oh thank god you're here!

Fifteen minutes early for my next class, I sit on a bench, rub my right foot and inevitably begin to fantasize about the obvious: what if I weren't disabled?

You probably wouldn't notice my slight limp and sturdy footwear, much less the tension held in the stiff second joint of my right middle finger, or in my slightly raised eyebrows. But often, faking small talk with a friend, the intermittent searing pain in my foot is the only thing about which I can think.

Sometimes the pain takes my thoughts in a more vindictive direction, and I send bitter mental messages to passing girls. Your boots look like you borrowed them from your prostitute mother... I didn't know bondage was in this season. Ugh. Why would you choose to wear sneakers? Yours look more orthopedic than mine. Ooh, those shoes are cute. Too bad they still don't detract from your face! I can't sustain it though, and I begin to imagine what I would be like had my fall merely broken a bone rather than shattering my life.

Shoe shopping would be an indulgence rather than an exercise in damage control. I wouldn't see older women and empathize with their careful steps. I'm unburdened by the periodic depression that accompanies the realization that I have no control over my own body. I might be casually doing anything -- planning a night out with friends without worrying about how far away the parking is or letting my sister guilt me into playing racquetball with her. All of the things that were once merely details have worked themselves into unattainable fantasies. Like calorie-free ice cream or my being a famous actress: it's just not going to happen. And sure maybe there is some disappointment, but what's the big fuss? Right?

It's maybe 10 years in the future and I'm looking at old pictures with my mother. There's one of me in my sophomore year at my sorority's formal, wearing a baby pink dress and a lime green knee-high cast.

"Oh Amy, remember when you broke your foot? That cast was so cute."

"Haha, I know! Everything was pink and green for a month."

Feeling uneasy about my self-involvement, I sometimes force my thoughts in the opposite direction. Picturing myself in a wheelchair, I imagine trying to afford a New York City apartment in a building that has an elevator and the way clients would try to avoid staring at me when I greet them at the glamorous public relations firm that has hired me in an effort to appear non-discriminatory.

Then I might see a person who really is in a wheelchair and I realize that I have no concept of what their life is like.

The thing about fantasies is that they don't have to intersect with reality. Isn't escape the point? Who wants to imagine something that's worse? If I wanted to appreciate what I have, I'd maybe go to temple or do community service.

In my mind, I am doing these things. But the inescapable reality is that I'm destined to be myself.