Prim, Proper & Perfect

I was in college when my cousin Gaye arrived in Boston to attend secretarial school. We were lukewarm friends, only related due to the fact that her daddy and mine had fought in the war together and become fast friends - she was terribly proper, nylons and low heeled pumps while I was worn out jeans and battered Nikes. She wanted all the traditional things, a pretty home, a picture perfect family, motherhood and all the amenities. We spent a fair amount of time together for two people with so little in common and my daddy often expressed his surprise that we got along at all. You come from such different worlds, he would say, How do you tolerate each other?

I had no answer for this. Gaye didn't own a pair of jeans - it wasn't ladylike - just the thought of crooked seams in her stockings was enough to undo her and she would go absolutely nowhere without perfect hair and makeup. She liked everything coordinated - shoes, gloves, purse, hat - and I was doing well if my earrings matched. She never cursed or lost her temper, never did anything that wasn't planned, liked only quiet music, and never raised her voice. She smiled a great deal and liked to quote from the Bible in moments in rare moments of stress or anger. I preferred to curse like a sailor and throw things. I thought she was prim and ridiculously fastidious. She thought I was wild and uncivilized and both of us thought the other would come to a disappointing and bad end.

She was, she freely admitted, husband hunting - preferably an intellectual sort of man with the potential for wealth and an appreciation for the finer things in life, one willing to support her while she produced and raised children. She was methodical about the process, attending social events and dances and teas, meeting and evaluating potential suitors with practiced ease. Some she encouraged, others she discarded, but by the end of her last year, she returned home empty handed, having found no one with the proper qualifications. I've exhausted the pool of available men, she told me, There's simply no one acceptable. I wished her better luck at home, watched her board a plane and sighed with relief.

She did marry, did produce and raise a brood of children, did find her pretty house and picture perfect family and lives to this day happily and contented with her junior league sort of life. She writes once a year, at Christmas, a lengthy and detailed synopsis of the year's accomplishments and achievements. The letters are cheerfully breezy and chatty and superficial - there are details of trips and adventures and career choices and grandchildren, all enthusiastically punctuated and underlined - the random happy face is sometimes used in place of a period and I can't shake off the feeling that this is the kind of a letter a Stepford wife might write - prim, proper, husband approved and perfect.

In comparison, my life has been disorderly and chaotic, filled with ups and downs and foolish drama, a series of mistakes and good choices, of learning and moving on, an on going battle against tradition, soft spoken geniality and accommodation. I may have had precious little stability but she's had precious little passion.

Who is to say which was the wiser choice?