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Remembering Crazy Aunt Sus3an

Crazy Aunt Sus3an?
When I was in college, I developed the idea of "Crazy Aunt Sus3an."

It was a vision I had for my future life, and it was the way I reconciled the facts that I wanted to travel and lead an adventurous life, not marry or have children, and still have family and long-term friends and children in my life.

So Crazy Aunt Sus3an was who I would be for the children in my life--mostly the children of friends, but also my siblings' children. I would be off on adventures most of the time, but when I returned to the United States, I would enjoy extended visits with my friends and I would be Crazy Aunt Sus3an to their children.

I would be the aunt who swooped in to pay them special attention, to be an example of nonconformity, to tell them wild-but-true stories of my life and travels, to enjoy them just as they were, and to be an example that there were many paths to a life-well-lived.

After two children and a twenty-year-marriage, it is good for me to remember Crazy Aunt Sus3an.

Not only is she an early vision of what my life as a Soloista might look like, she also reminds me that I spent most of my pre-marriage life planning a Soloista life.

This is meaningful to me, probably for many reasons, but right now it is meaningful to me because I do not want to be a Soloista simply because I am unhappy with how my marriage went and I am rejecting the idea of marriage because I fear failure. Crazy Aunt Sus3an reminds me that during my young life I had planned to be a Soloista and that my marriage was a detour from my earlier plan.


Photo Credit: Dominika Roseclay

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