While 22 years old is young, Sylvia was old enough to have had other influences in her life. The sadness here is so palpable but I’d like to offer some personal thoughts on how we sometimes do not know which direction life takes us. And it can be a very spontaneous change, too…
One of my sisters, the “good girl” of the family did a stint as a stripper to make money in her 20’s. What???? I was so shocked. Here is my little sister flying under the radar of smart, directed, popular, accomplished classical musician (and now pole dancer) with traditional values. -I was the irrepressible wild child. --The one in trouble all the time. --The one who left home early in the wake of my parents’ divorce. I met a wonderful man, a decade older than me, and we lived together for five years. It was passionate, tumultuous; I couldn’t marry him but will always love him. --It was the 70’s.
When I was 16 and my parents’ marriage was melting down, I was offered a summer stay with a friend’s family half way across the country. My parents were divided (father yes, mother no) on giving me permission to go. An older friend of the family (like a brother to me) offered to drive me half way across the country with or without their permission. I was able to go and get out of the crosshairs of the meltdown for a summer, but I’ll never forget the lifeline extended to me back then.
So, I am wondering about some missing pieces of Sylvia’s story. Was she born in Germany? How old was she when she came to USA? -And does she speak, read, and write in any foreign language (s)?
There is the group of friends at the pool party. There is the Wagner group, classmates and musicians and teachers. --And, mutual friends and acquaintances of the BF/F. -Connections in NYC, other countries? --Military?
As I look back, I can see how spontaneous some life changing decisions and paths unfolded, seemingly overnight. --Today, at 50-something, life changing decisions are years in the planning. Youth can be so much more emotionally driven. Now, it is all tempered with sensibility.
While I always knew that we don’t tell everybody everything, I guess it was my sister who really showed me that, too. I don’t believe siblings especially ever plan to hurt or abandon the one’s they love. -But the driving forces behind life altering events of one’s youth can be truly mystifying.