While drinking a mango-smoothie in a local caf, i watched the people going by outside the window, and of them i noticed a grandmother, her daughter and grandson, and this little story popped into my head.
She pushed a buggy forth, with her grandson sitting in it, who was cheerfully flopping his feet up and down. Her daughter, the mother of the little boy, walked next to them and talked not-stop about all the things that kept her busy. Like the rattle in the car that she couldn't put her finger on (not that she was going to), or the hairdresser that seemed to be on endless maternity leave, or her little boy who didn't appear to like his fruit mash any more. She listened to it, chimed in with the odd detail of he own life, knowing that it wasn't really going to be listened to. The shop they were heading for came into view already. In the shop-window they passed she saw the reflection of herself - an older woman with brown hair, done up in a bun, pushing a buggy, her grandson and her daughter, still talking, now about the woman next-door who was having an affair with the gardener. She thought of affairs she would have liked to have had, at some point, but the reflection staring at her made her aware of the incredibility of that. The time for those notions was long gone...
She was till pretty bugged by it, the remark of her daughter. It had been placed casually, probably not even meant to hurt her, just to point something out to her, but still, now that they were in the shop, she didn't know whether to look in the mirror or avoid it like a bad disease. Her hair had been her pride all her life, and the 'Jeez, mum, it's getting rather thin at the back' had made her pretty insecure all of a sudden. Was it that obvious? Her daughter wasn't someone who took a lot of notice of the people around her, apart form her being in line with what was normal, so if she thought it was worth mentioning, what would other people think? That she was some old woman who wanted to hold on to her youth, at all cost? How sad...
Once she didn't look a lot different to her daughter now - youthful, full of life, full of stories that she'd want to share with her own mother, but she had been even further away in her thoughts that she was herself now. Is that the way it went? Is that how history repeats itself, endlessly, each time a little bit different, but most if it along the same lines? No, don't think like that, thinking makes you go mad... Coffee, they were going to have coffee and her grandson wanted apple juice. Her youth had gone, and her little one was a mother herself now. Stop whinging, go on with life, otherwise you'll give up the ghost...
(and they were probably just looking for shoes or a new dress)
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