Shirley and her boyfriend lived on the commune for about a year. Then one day he told her he was leaving the farm to go back to Chicago. He explained to her that he was tired of the hippie life and wanted to go to college to finish his degree. Shirley thought he was selling out, but followed him to Chicago anyway where she took a job as a receptionist for a small law firm while he went to school. She figured this line of work would be temporary until he graduated. She always hoped of going back to that farm in Indiana because she had no interest of going to college and had no career drive to find a better job. But a few months after their move, her boyfriend broke up with her.
Shirley could have returned to the farm, but never did. She continued working office jobs and living on her own while she had countless relationships with other men and a few women. None of them lasted for over a year, but they all shared the common denominator of staying up late and getting stoned. And through it all, she stayed in the same line of work as a receptionist for the last 30 years, never sure of her course, but feeling somehow there had to be a better way to make a living.
Shirley felt she was letting her psychic gift go to waste. She once bought Tarot cards, but the deck was still wrapped in cellophane laying next to the ashtray on her coffee table. She also bought a book on how to improve one’s psychic powers but she never once opened the book. The book laid on her kitchen table in the store bag with the receipt still inside.
Shirley wondered how one gets into the psychic business. Do I need a license? A certificate of some kind? Some training? She told herself someday she’d find out. One of these days. How hard can it be? One of these days.
And each night, the ideas of how to change her life swirled in her head as she drank and chain- smoked cigarettes on her couch. Shirley would always pass out on the couch and never make it to her bed. In the morning, she would awake still wearing her clothes from the night before and there would be a half-filled bottle of scotch or rum and an ashtray filled with cigarette butts on the coffee table.
Shirley had ideas. Soaked in scotch. Soaked in rum. Shirley had all kinds of ideas on how to change her life. Countless ideas on how to improve her life. Ideas that spun in tight circles as she drank her nights away.
© Copyright Wawzenek 2013