Talks With Dad Part I

I have a feeling there will be more installments like this, hence the use of the numeral after the title. My family recently vacationed in York Maine as we do every year and when listening to a mix CD I made, (please stifle your laughter, I know mix CDs are cheesy.) he declared, "Erin, you were born in the wrong era, the wrong decade." I had a nice compilation of Frankie Valli, The Foundations, Mungo Jerry, Ben E. King and the Temptations with a few songs from Grease. I looked at him astonished. I had never thought of that because I love all music. This CD just happened to contain music from the 50's, 60's and 70's. I am usually listening to punk, rap, hip hop, pop, rock, classical, jazz, even really old Frank Sinatra and Billie Holiday. I do not however listen to country. I don't do twang. But, my father's statement got me thinking. What kind of person would I be if I grew up in the 40's, 50's..60's..70's...even the 80's...I had always wondered what life was like and whether or not I would fit in. My dad claims I would not because I am too liberal and people in America in past decades were much more conservative. I agree but political views aside, I felt I could survive in practically every era given the right tools. If I were to be alive during the twenties, would I be a supporter of prohibition or would I work at a speakeasy? What if I made friends with some nice Italian boys and went with the Mafia? Jon Dillinger perhaps? Maybe my family moves out to Los Angeles and I meet a nice girl at a casting call for spokes models named Norma Jean(e). Wouldn't that be something? To meet my female idol. In the fifties I might shake up my mum and dad's household by wanting to cohabitate or wanting to try this new thing called "the pill". Who knows, I my refuse to marry. The things that seem so normal today would have been lengthy conversations that ended in shouting arguments or hurt feelings.
I took a class on 1968 my first semester at school and I found that 1968 wasn't necessarily that much different than 2008. In fact, they were eerily similar. I wrote a 20 page paper comparing and contrasting the years and their pop culture. So, after that little research project I decided I would have fit in quite nicely in the late sixties. Any time period before that I think I would have had some severe difficulties. As I watch one of the few Romance movies can endure, Becoming Jane, I cannot fathom how these women lived. Waiting, waiting, patiently waiting for a husband to come along with the right fortune and their fathers to produce the right dowry. I personally don't see marriage as something I could partake in, at least right now. To me, giving yourself to someone, your entire being, is just idiotic. "Passion makes fools of us all" Anne Hathaway says as the brilliant Jane Austen in this movie. But to belittle yourself and to be an obedient little shadow to your husband is just preposterous. Even in the film, Mona Lisa Smile, Julia Stiles' character breaks the mold of Wesley College to continue her education at Yale while her friends are pairing off and starting a family and advising her to do the same. It's madness.
I explained all this to my father and he told me, "You are strong enough to stand on your own two feet, no one is refuting that... but I do sometimes wonder, are you strong enough to let someone in? Are you strong enough to let someone catch a glimpse of you?"
I guess I'll find out sooner or later.