In the same way I used to play the Glad Game (thanks to Hayley Mills, aka Pollyanna) I've been assuring my friends (and mainly myself) for years that life hasn't really changed that much. It isn't a harsher world that we live in. No need for helicopter parenting. Etc etc.
Today I received a phone call from my daughter suggesting I may need to pick her up as the trains aren't running due to the shooting at X station. She said it in that nonchalant way that only 17 year old girls can affect when their peers are listening. My response was equally nonchalant, although my first response was to rush to school and personally escort her to the car.
I can honestly say I never had to face this problem when I was in high school. Although, to be fair, I never used trains to get about, so maybe this isn't a fair comparison.
Pollyanna was a favourite story at one time in my life. I particularly liked the crystals that Pollyanna used to make rainbows in some crotchety old woman's house. I thought it very brave of her to climb the tree outside her bedroom window — the poplar trees in our back yard not a patch on her tree. I still play the Glad Game, much to my friends annoyance, always looking at the glass half full instead of half empty. It's not a bad way to live, although sometimes it needs to be acknowledged that the glass is nearly empty and it's time for a reality check.
Maybe life isn't as innocent as it was in those halcyon 70s?
2 comments:
I loved Pollyanna too, Karen, and the glad game. I searched for years for my own crystal to hang up at the window - no sign of anything remotely like a crystal out in far west Queensland.
Like you, I still play the glad game most of the time.
Hi Sheryl, sorry just found this, I agree that not playing the glad game is easier some days. I loved that idea of the rainbows and the crystals - I have one hanging from my bedroom window and forget it's there for months on end until a I wake to find the sun hitting it at just the right angle and there's a rainbow on my ceiling...
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