Here's to who we used to be

The Boston Herald

BEVERLY BECKHAM

I wanted her to put it in writing. I asked her, but she thought I was joking. I wasn't. She was remembering a me I no longer am. She was remembering a me my children have never even known.

"You made the best clothes in the class," she told me at the gym the other day. In my new incarnation, I work out. In my other life, I sewed.

"I was making a bathrobe and you were making a plaid jacket. I was impressed," she said.

I did make a jacket, once upon a time ago. I bought the material at the old Bargain Center in Quincy. I bought the lining there, too - red lining. Caryn helped me cut it out. She showed me how to match plaids and Caryn's mother showed me how to make bound button holes. When the jacket was finished, it didn't fit very well. One sleeve was shorter than the other and the shoulders were too big. But I wore it anyway, until I got pregnant and it didn't fit anymore.

Now I am Ms. Take-it-to-the-tailor. My sewing machine is only a stand now for the CD player. If I have to, I sew on buttons. But I never hem. If something's too long or too short, I don't buy it.

So what happened to the seamstress I was? Where did she go? When was she replaced by the person I am? And why?

My friend Janet tells people I'm a gourmet cook. But I'm not. I'm not even a bad cook. I hardly cook at all. If you can't put it between two slices of bread, it doesn't exist in my house.

Janet laughs when I say this. She lives in California now. She thinks I'm exaggerating. I made some fancy chicken dish and a broccoli souffle once years ago when she came to dinner. I was newly married then, and cooking was fun. We ate in the dining room by candlelight, on the good china, and had creme de menthe after the meal. And all this made a good impression.

But all this was once upon a time ago, too. The cook I was has long disappeared.

My Uncle Frank's sister, Marie, thinks I can sing, because I used to when I was a little girl.

"Are you still playing racquetball?" someone I haven't seen in years will ask.

"Do you still teach fourth grade?"

"I remember how you used to bake cookies every day," an old friend will say.

But I don't do any of these things anymore.

Life is strange. You try on so many roles over the years and some you wear for a while if you like them and they fit; and some you intend to wear forever but they fray, or they fall out of fashion. Many you hate to give up, but something else comes along and you can't wear everything all at once. Some you don't like at all and can't wait to shed.

Only a few are permanent. Most you wear for a short time, some for only an hour. But if someone sees you then and remembers, the role can permanently define you.

My mother had a friend, Mona, whose son Michael hit me when we were 8 or 9 years old. Michael was a big kid, twice as big as I was. But maybe I hit him first. Maybe I provoked him. Who knows what happened. But forever after, Michael was referred to in my house as "a kid with big problems."

"Poor Mona sure has her hands full," someone would say.

Michael was our up close and personal juvenile delinquent. He may have been a wonderful boy. He may be an upstanding citizen today, but to my family, he was always "trouble."

But no one is always trouble. People change. They try on different roles. They experiment; they make choices. And they grow.

I've grown. I know this. And I'll continue to grow and to change. As we all will. But I can't help missing some of the people I'm not anymore. I miss the little girl who would stand up and sing when anyone asked. I miss the young woman who liked to cook and clean. I wish I could find her. My family wishes I could find her.

It makes me wonder. Would the people we were recognize the people we've become? And what about the people we will be?

We live one life, but we live many lives.