Complex Suzy; or, “Write for five minutes beginning with ‘Once Upon a Time I’”

Once Upon a Time I lived without the notion of writing one true sentence. Now, thanks to this assignment, I question every word I consider writing. But that’s not what I want to say about Once Upon a Time I. I mean, how many times in life do you get to say Once Upon a Time I? I don’t want to waste it.

Once upon a time I could have always counted on my eye to wander toward the prospect of a perfect man, a better relationship. I realized this morning, I feel above that now. I think I'm actually, fully happy. But that's not grand enough for Once Upon a Time I, is it? And my first thought, Once Upon a Time I thought things were much simple, is too obvious, too trite. Though it’s funny, just how many ways there are for each individual thing in life not to be simple.

Take Suzy S— at the reunion, for example. Simple version of Suzy: privileged, liberal daughter of important Oak Park family. Wait, was she privileged? I only assume that because her house was on the right side of the tracks and mine wasn’t. I assume they were wealthy, but for all I know her parents worked all hours to make ends meet. But what does privileged really mean anyway? If they did work seventeen jobs between them and still manage to instill social consciousness into their kids, would that make the kids even more privileged?

And come to think of it, I assume they were important people because my mom, who worked a clerical job at the village hall, talked about them like they were. She really looked up to Mrs. S—. Said she was so kind and classy. But what does that mean? Did Mrs. S— nobly fight to advance the rights of minorities in our grudgingly integrated suburb and mom read about it in the meeting minutes she typed up, or was it just that Mrs. S— smiled when she came in to pay her parking tickets? And having paid some huge and I’ll still say it unfair and unwarranted parking tickets in my life, never with a smile… well, you see where this is going.

And I haven’t even gotten to complex Suzy yet: Successful journalist, Pulitzer-nominated, and in the same breath reminding you she didn’t get it, who’s moved on to repping a woman’s rights organization, divorced and raising her kids back in the finally integrated Oak Park. This is not what I imagined for the Suzy I knew. I pictured the perfect family in a wealthy but conscious burb like Wilmette. Big house, loving husband, suitably appreciative but it reads more like a comfortable sense of entitlement.

At the reunion Suzy said, “Yeah, I had this idea that when you make a vow it’s permanent, but he didn’t feel that way.” So here she was. This woman who as a student managed to both ride high in a sorority and date the coolest artist on campus, and help the local Hmong population get acclimated—did I mention she was also a student teacher? Here she was, twenty years later, at the bar where we all used to drink, having a beer and shaking her thick choppy hair and moving to the next subject. Maybe once upon a time things were complicated, and the older I get the simpler they became.