Wish Fulfillment

          My name is Hannah. I am 66 years old, a receptionist at the Bellevue Hyatt Regency, and severely disillusioned.

          As a young girl living in the quiet suburb of Clyde Hill, I wanted nothing more than to see the world when I grew up. Never mind that gallivanting around the planet won't pay the bills. I imagined myself trekking through the Amazon armed with a machete, driving a Jeep through the African savanna and nearly being trampled to death by wildebeests, and watching the Northern Lights reflect off of glaciers as I camped in the Canadian tundra.
          Since I didn't inherit a fortune from my great-aunt or anything, it kind of goes without saying that my dreams never came to fruition. I attended community college, moved into an apartment only a few miles away from where I had grown up, met and married Greg while I was doing a stint as a waitress, then landed my receptionist job two years later. It's been 38 years, and nothing's changed since then except that Greg is dead from cancer. When he was alive, I could push away the fact that I was sort of shackled to this small city, that my butt was spreading across my swivel chair at the front desk, and that the suitcase in my room was gathering dust. But now that I'm alone, now that I'm this old lady with nothing better to do except putter about the apartment and frequent the library, I've been finding it harder to forget.
          What happened to you, Hannah?
          What have you been doing?
          Where did your life go?

          My name is Hannah. I am 67 years old, retired, and just realizing the implications.

          I will never forget that first Monday morning when I woke up to the sun filtering through the blinds on my window.
          I never wake up to warm, buttery rays of light gently pooling in my room. It's always the demonic caterwauls of my alarm clock dragging me from my slumber at gunpoint, when the skies are a sickly pre-dawn blue. There was a moment of confused, disoriented panic as my eyes snapped open and my heart started to race, thinking that I was an hour late to my shift, and I almost risked damage to my joints by bolting out of bed when I remembered.
          I was retired. Oh, heavenly bliss. Retired. No more Hyatt. No more lipsticked smiles from behind a computer monitor. No more white-walled monotony. I sank back into my pillow and slept until noon.
          Yet somehow, the obvious epiphany only reached me yesterday, after a week had already passed. I was planning to spend the day tidying up my apartment, and had retrieved the vacuum cleaner and feather duster before realizing that there was nothing to tidy up. I had cleaned everything the day before. So now what? I thought.
          The answer came so suddenly I might have actually shouted out "Eureka!" in my excitement. I was retired, for God's sake! Freed from my job, with money in my 401(k) and a social security pension. I had maybe 25 years ahead of me, and I could do whatever the heck I wanted.
          And what better way to kick off the remainder of my life by fulfilling my oldest and dearest wish?


© 2011 Mitch Mayne

          I've made this blog to write about my upcoming journey around the world, which I've decided is going to be a learning experience. Sorry to disappoint anyone, but hedonistic vacationing is not exactly exploring (and overweight geriatrics like me have no place on a Hawaiian beach). Instead, I will be visiting fault lines and tectonic boundaries, which can lead me anywhere from the Andes to Indonesia. I will learn from this, because tectonic plates were never really something I've studied. And this will be fun.
          There is still a suitcase to be packed, a plan to be outlined, and tickets to be booked, but I'm excited already!