Would I Like To Be Sixteen Again?

By Betsy Ashton

During the recent holidays someone asked if I would like to be sixteen again? I didn't answer, because I wanted to think about the question. Did I want to go back to a younger age? A simpler time?

Maybe.

I was a senior in high school when I was sixteen. I was smart. I was unhappy living in a state I won't name. I wanted to go home to California from the state I won't name. I wanted out of high school, where I was bored out of my freaking mind.

I didn't know what was ahead of me back in that dark age when dinosaurs walked the earth. I didn't know I would go to undergraduate school at one of the best universities in the land. I didn't know I would protest the war in Vietnam. I didn't know I would burn my bra for equal rights. I didn't know I would see two more of my heroes gunned down. After all, I'd lived through President Kennedy's assassination. I didn't foresee the assassinations of Dr. King and Bobby Kennedy.

At sixteen what kept me sane was reading and riding my horses. I loved both equally. I read voraciously, but for my studies and for pleasure. I had teachers and one librarian who challenged me with great books. And I had a group of friends I rode with every week.

I learned to rope cattle. I learned to herd calves into shoots for tagging and inoculations. I learned sitting around a camp fire on a ranch after a hard day's work was more fun than the day spent in the saddle. I learned to dodge streams of tobacco juice...

The world was changing but I didn't see it yet. All I saw was graduation at sixteen and college applications and getting out of the state I won't name.

Would I go back to being sixteen again? Not if I have to meet my twelfth grade algebra teacher again.

Nope. I think I'll stay right where I am. Thank you very much.

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If you're interested, please check out my mystery, Mad Max Unintended Consequences, available from Amazon and Barnes and Noble.

A Quick Look Back by Alison Henderson

This month we're looking backward and forward here at the Roses of Prose. I have to admit I don't spend much time or energy looking backward, as a rule. I'm generally a forward-thinking person - full of optimism, energy, and plans. However, 2013 was such a watershed year for me that it deserves a few minutes of reflection.

January 1st was my first official day as a retired person. I'm still not exactly sure how I feel about that. After thirty-seven years, I was burned out on my day job and more than ready for a change. However, the change I cooked up was so dramatic my husband still hasn't recovered. In my family I've always been known as the logical, practical one, but after years of living cautiously, I was inspired to leave Minnesota (where we had lived for twenty-three years and raised our daughter) and move half-way across the country. So we headed west to our vacation condo in Carmel, California and started house hunting. We found a tired '70's ranch house in a spectacular location and signed on the dotted line. 

Before

After

Sadly, at the end of February, my beloved father succumbed to the ravages of Parkinson's Disease at the age of eighty-five. Those of you who have lost a parent understand the empty, hollow feeling. My sister was able to show him a picture of our new house on her tablet before he died, but I'm sorry he will never see it in person. He would have loved the view of the golf course across the valley.

In March, we sold our house and packed up our most important possessions, saying goodbye to nearly half the stuff we had accumulated during thirty years of marriage. On Good Friday, we hit the road on our great driving adventure across the American West. I wouldn't want to repeat the experience, but like most adventures, it tightened the bonds between those who shared it.

April brought a flurry of activity as we settled into residence in a new state and embarked on the mammoth remodeling project necessary to turn our abandoned, rat-infested money pit into a beautiful new home. After nine months of construction and mountains of cash, we have finally started moving our belongings in this week. Hooray!

I also started a slew of new professional projects in April, beginning with my first book cover designs for fellow Rose Jannine Gallant's Secrets of Ravenswood novella trilogy. I loved the design process (and the results!) and went on to design the cover for my first romantic suspense novel. I spent late spring and early summer learning the skills necessary to self publish Unwritten Rules, which went live at the end of August. Thanks to a labor swap with Jannine in return for her covers, I had expert help with the editing. Everything else I tackled myself, if only to prove I could. It was a very satisfying experience and one I plan to repeat.

Back on the personal front, my daughter decided to leave her PhD program in Egyptian Art and Archaeology and look for a "real job". Never one to keep the ups and downs of life to herself, she allowed her father and me to suffer along with her every day of her frustrating, months'-long search until she finally landed a good job in mid-October. What a relief! I think it might be nearly as difficult being the parent of an unemployed child as being unemployed oneself.

Somehow, in the midst of all this activity, the rest of the year kind of slipped away from me. I'd planned to write and self-publish a Christmas novella. Oh, well, it will still be a good story next year. All in all, I have to consider 2013 a resounding success, even as I hope 2014 will be a bit less action-packed. Here's wishing you just the right amount of excitement for the New Year!

Alison
www.alisonhenderson.com
http://alisonhenderson.blogspot.com