* A SINGLE MOTHER
I’m sorry to hold you up but you must sign these forms before you go in tomorrow. I’m happy the meeting is over. It dragged on and I got irritable too. It took me back to the times I worked as a secretary in the court. OK, thanks a lot! See you tomorrow!
Now I have to go home. I’ll have to drive ten miles at rush hour. Yesterday there was an accident and a pile-up of ten cars caused a long tailback. If there are no hold-ups today, I won’t get stuck in a traffic jam. So I must arrive by about seven o’clock. I have to call my kids and hurry them up. Their French lesson ran on longer than expected, so they won’t leave school till 4.30 p.m. and I’ll have to wait for them in the car. Then they’ll be complaining they can’t keep up with me on the way to the gym.
OK, I am having some time to sort out the post now… Three weeks passed by before I got a reply to my letter of complaint. Here it is. They got around to sending the reply. How can I plan anything with such hold-ups? Nobody knows what lies ahead. All I can do is just take it one day at a time.
7. MEMORY
* WHO DARES WINS
When I first appeared in Cherry GmbH’s office I thought I might be promoted to the position of Senior Regional Sales Manager but I was a long way out thinking that. Sales Director Mr. Suesmilch, in all innocence, sincerely told me there were enough taxi drivers in Germany and they didn’t need one more. The best offer was to come back to Russia and try to succeed in climbing the ladder over there. I spent ten years in vain. So when I was offered another position in a successful multinational corporation, I jumped at the chance. One of the main reasons for my immediate acceptance was the opportunity for a large amount of foreign travel. One day I was sitting relaxing in a cafe by the Seine after a hard day’s business, before jetting off to an important meeting the next morning in Rome. How romantic it all was. It took me five years to start recognizing that my emotions changed. I can’t say I understood that a life spent on planes and in hotels is lonely, dull and exhausting – not at all. I didn’t long to be back at home and didn’t dream of the simple pleasures of having someone to watch television with, of being asked how my day was. I had a nice family and three kids.
However, one day, my mindset changed. As I lay on the bed in my luxurious hotel room, I could see no benefit other than a high salary. “What’s the point being a hunting dog in an expensive suit with an indulging, patronizing smile, doing the same job day after day, year after year?” I asked myself. “I talk to the same people, I tell them the same things and every company in every city in the world is the same.”
It was at a Chinese exhibition when I first thought the unthinkable. I warmed to my computer-related topic with a Chinese colleague and we found a lot in common. He offered me the chance to set up a common business and I thought to myself, “Why the hell do I have to go on like this?” To tell the truth, I was scared, but for the first time in my life I was truly content. It took us two years and a number of false starts with the wrong products, but finally we succeeded in getting it right. Who dares wins!
DON’T LET THEM EAT AWAY AT YOUR NERVES
My Grandma loves looking at her old photographs. She says memories come flooding back and relives them. She says they are “good’ and “bad’. The former ones make her happy taking her back to the times when she was young and beautiful. The latter stir up sad memories and remind her of the things she would like to change but can’t. My mum often sympathises with our Grandma and tells me we shouldn’t let bad memories eat away at us, we should put bad experiences behind us. We have to always try to live in the present and live for the future. But I think it’s easier said than done.
* FRAGILE MEMORIES
Our grandparents and parents store up so many memories over the years, good ones and bad ones, that it’s worth trying to write them down or record them. My mother keeps an old photo of me and associates it with my early childhood before she divorced my father. Looking at the photos she always smiles and sighs. It suddenly came back to me how fragile and unstable the happiness might be. So when I saw my Grandma looking through the album, I took my notebook and asked her to tell me something about those photos. Of course, they stirred up lots of happy memories and some sad ones too. For example, when she and her husband lost their jobs, my mum was very little and they tried to get along on just their Social Security checks. She added that happy ones stuck with her forever, though. People try to block out their sad memories, but there is no use in doing that because you might forget the good ones. It’s true that you can get an unexpected flashback to your unpleasant experience, but it can help you learn a lesson or teach others how to avoid it.
* DOES IT RING A BELL?
For me this picture conjured up a series of crazy events. I was the only girl in the group and when I got my diploma I was on cloud nine and wanted everyone to see how happy I was. So when going out in the corridor after the graduation I couldn’t hold-back my feelings any longer and started jumping like a child. Little wonder I didn’t notice the steps on my way and fell down. As I fell, I grabbed another boy’s gown and he came down on top of me. Then we both were taken to hospital with a broken wrist and foot. Guess what happened next! We got to know one another and eventually married. It’s amazing how one picture can call up an event in such detail. When I look at it, my thoughts always flash back immediately to that moment. Sometimes I ask him “Does it ring a bell?”
“Not just one – a thousand bells!” he usually replies, smiling.
8. LOCATION
* ODD MAN OUT
Eric was a reliable colleague and excellent employee. He was not greedy and never had money to burn, but he managed to get by. However he always said he felt uneasy in our corporation and wanted to try something else. He was content, and never worried about promotion or a great career. To me he was the odd man out because he even didn’t have a girlfriend. So I wasn’t surprised when he said he was going to get a new lease on life. As the big day arrived, all folks were incredulous saying, “How can you throw all you’ve worked for down the drain?” However, Eric was ready for adventure. He left the office and never looked back. I’ve never met him since then but I’m sure he’s happy, if not wealthy.
* LONG-AWAITED REST
It was the first time I had a week off and we set off for a lovely hotel which was tucked away in a deep forest. Our room on the first floor opened onto a balcony with lovely view of a charming lake. Woods stretched away to the horizon. Early morning I could see a few fishermen who were spread out over the lakeshore. My wife and I went out onto the balcony wrapping ourselves up in tweed blankets, drank frothy coffee and felt we were completely cut off from the crazy modern world!
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