How Did This Happen?

Last week I saw Little Women--the good one with Winona Ryder, not the awful one with Katherine Hepburn. (She made our Jo look like a pencil-necked geek.) I recalled how I once read that all girls want to be Jo in Little Women. I never did. I wanted to be Jo in Little Men--the book, not the awful movie with Muriel (Mariel?) Hemingway. I wanted to write and have sons and a husband and raise boys. And I've always felt that to a great extent I got what I wanted.

Until, that is, I saw that movie last week. When I realized I'm not Jo at all. I'm Marmee! Oh, my gosh! When did this happen? There she was, giving little lectures about the status of women, encouraging her kids to do good, combating the forces of materialism and worldliness, and bringing in firewood. I sat there with my mouth open and thought, "That's me!"

What a bummer.