The women who live in my wallet
… and by wallet I mean purse. And by purse I mean bag. And by bag, I mean the leather monstrosity (big enough to move into) that fell on my head while spring-cleaning.
In it, I found a stack of old ID cards. As I spread them out, they evoked my journey so far. A sample:
LIBRARY CARD, circa high-school: fresh-faced, I gaze out, all straightened teeth and sparkly eyes. Pity about the perm. Yes. A perm. Shaped to my head (a moment’s silence, to reflect on just how bad that is). The card evokes water-stained taffeta dresses, an after-school job in menswear (no lovely men, just tubby grandpas needing underwear from their knees to their armpits) and holding Peter’s hand in Economics Camp.
STUDENT CARD: ca. first year college: getting lost the first day and asking directions—while standing under a sign post. Discovering that the Commerce boys on level five of the library were far cuter than the Philosophy students downstairs (and far less self-absorbed).
MEDIA PASS: ca.first job. Press pass. Hilarious job on real estate show. Saved by job in news. Terrified by news director, who taught me a lot once I stopped quaking and ducking into side rooms whenever I saw him thunder down the hallway.
EASTERN EUROPE NEWS AGENCY VISA: ca. mid-career. Marched off for an HIV test on first day to a clinic with sticky floors. Insisted the sour old matron unpack a fresh needle in front of me. Everything in the cafeteria was suspended in aspic jelly. Wonderful adventure.
What do your ID cards say?
Alicia,
This was fun to read, and provided a good insight into your other selves. My mind went immediately to my International Student ID (ca. 2002) which I have kept for years, probably 12 or so years. I’ve kept it because it’s the moment in my life when I looked the plumpest I have ever been blessed to be. I know I sound crazy but for me, coming from the African culture, fat was a sign of success and someone who was living well. (sadly Western ideals have changed this mentality) Never mind that I was a broke graduate student! I looked plump and that’s all that mattered. There is another card which has a picture of my first boyfriend in the US, and two friends from London. They were students on a service trip whom I worked with. We became quite the double-dating quad over the summer of 1998.
Thanks for the reminder to roam through my purse again and to be reassured that this woman is still there, a part of who I am today…learning to love my body and making new friends wherever I go. I might go blog about this now!
KK, so good to see your name pop up!
You hit on a good point; it’s interesting how culture plays into the choices of photos/momentos we keep or ditch.
I remember a lady in India proudly showing off her new work badge- because the lighting made her seem much paler. Sadly, skin-lightning creams are still huge there, an outdated attitude stemming from colonial times.
And I agree, I enjoy learning a different side to you, too.
Cheers,
Alicia
ps: Chuffed that my blog post might inspire a similar one on yours!
As always, thought provoking and even rib-tickling!
Have mostly id cards of one kind or another that have different fotos of me over time and remind me of how much time has past since they were taken, like my park pass in my county, the id card from when I was an adjunct professor at a nearby college working with aspiring teachers. Even have my mom (RIP) and my husband’s expired driver’s licenses. I clear out stuff from the wallet from time to time, but certain things remains there, like the last two. Interesting.
Favorite New Identity: Grandmother to my son’s 2 1/2 week old daughter!
The BEST Yet.
Hi Louisa! Thanks for your support, and for sharing your own cards. They each tell a story, from professional to personal.
I’m touched to hear that you carry your mother’s and husband’s cards – a way for them stay close each day.
And congratulations on your new identity! Little Amelia is a delight. Two and half weeks – how brand-new is that?! 🙂
Alicia
Funnily enough it is the Library card that evokes so many fond memories for me. My father taking me on a regular basis to the little local library down the street. I even used to play ‘Librarian’ with my sister where we would pretend that a deck of playing cards were cataloguing cards, tragic! It was on one of those regular visits that I was served by a petite, wide-eyed, smiling Librarian, who not only became my boss for a time a few years later (yes I ended up working in Libraries), but she is now a very dear friend, one of many I have met through the Library network. I recently married and had to change an endless amount of documents etc to my married name. And the very first thing I updated was my beloved Library card.
You’re so right about all of those identities. Most of my reminders are at the bottom of one of those plastic tubs from the Container Store which, empty, you can lift with one finger. Full of historical artifacts on the top shelf of a cramped closet, they become life threatening to dislodge.
I had almost forgotten about permanents. My mother was such a big fan, and after several boxed kit home permanents, sent me for my first ‘real’ one in a hair salon when I was in the eighth grade. Real frizz framing a chubby face – almost painful to look at. High School pictures show how hard I tried, unsuccessfully, to look like a model from Seventeen Magazine. Fortunately that beauty standard wasn’t necessary for checking out groceries after school in the local supermarket. On my first job, in the airline business (a much different industry then – lots of fun and generous travel benefits), I was so skinny I looked fragile, but eager to look sophisticated. Got lost at Kennedy Airport on the second day of work. The picture ID from my first professional job at a university shows someone trying hard to look like I was up to the job. It worked out well, especially after the unstable tyrant I worked for was eventually fired.
Thank you, Alicia, for reminding us how much fun it is to look at these other women in our closet every now and then, especially for those of us who took the long and winding road.
Don’t get me started on helicopter parenting. I have even heard of a camera in the room at summer camp, but the college dorm room story takes it to a whole new level.
Hello Maureen,
Thanks for sharing your photo stories. I know what just you mean about the perm at the salon – I only need to close my eyes to recall the strong smell of the solution wafting about.
And isn’t it funny how our staff IDs can capture the eagerness of a first job, just as we long to exude an air of knowing what we’re doing? 🙂
Cheers,
Alicia
PS: Maureen and I were chatting off-line, about a news story in which a college girl sued her mother for requiring her to have a camera in her dorm room – and pointed at her bed, no less.
Outrageous! Fortunately, she won.
Hi Alicia, great post! It made me think how we change and grow over time. Our identity changes with time, new careers and different partnerships can make us feel confident, important or vulnerable depending what we’re doing at the time. I loved my years as a student at uni and thought this was an important right of passage for my twenties. Going on a ‘working holiday’ in Europe in my mid-twenties gave me new perspectives as a traveller (even my flings were justified as holiday romances!) Establishing a career that I love helped me forge a professional reputation and this helped me shape my identity and my thinking too. I’m now a wife and mother also and these roles have merged as part of my identity, not submerged it! I love that our past experiences help to form a whole…..I just wish that I could revisit my slimmer days!
“….these roles have merged as part of my identity, not submerged it!” – Holly, Savvy Girl, 2012.
Holly, I love that! Don’t mind me, making it into a quote. We wear all sorts of hats through life, but learning to blend them for some sense of balance is a huge life lesson.
You hit the nail on the head – all our experiences shape who we are, and who we’re yet to become.
Always lovely to see your name pop up – and any Savvy Girl who happily justifies holiday flings, is a woman after my own heart!
Thanks,
Alicia
Wow how we change with time. At uni I was a bit of a ‘rock chick’ – I loved music and seeing live bands 3 or 4 times a week. The Sunday ‘session’ was always great in summer with a crowd of friends and bands belting it out in the beer garden. A few years on and whilst life changes and I’m no longer a student in my twenties (with all the wonderful lack of responsibility that I thoroughly enjoyed), I still love seeing live bands, albeit less frequently! All our experiences shape us and I like to think a bit of that ‘Rock chic’ is still in me. Let me keep this dream alive….I wonder what ever happened to my ‘goth’ friend Marnie – I bet she is a lawyer now!
Oh, the Sunday “session” – Marie, you took me back in time! (for fellow Savvy Girls who may not be familiar, the SS is an Australian insitution – Sunday afternoons in a beer garden of a pub/bar, as Marie mentions – even better if its beach-side). Hope that inner chick gets a live-music fix soon. And yes, I’ll bet Marnie-the-Goth is a now lawyer, or a sensible type who makes her own preserves…! 🙂
Thanks for stopping by,
Alicia.
The first blog I’ve been determined to tap into for a long time, and I’m glad! The stories are full of wit. Can’t wait to read more! 🙂
Hi Rachael!
Thanks for stopping by, and I’m glad you like the posts. It’s a learning curve, but a fun one.
Cheers,
Alicia