NONFICTION - 
    With the Theme of Choices      

“My Younger Self intrudes its once-existence most insidiously
when My Older Self has to pack for a trip.”

                                   Photo by Weebly.com                                    

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My Younger Self
by  Jackie Davis Martin

​​My Younger Self intrudes its once-existence most insidiously when My Older Self has to pack for a trip. My Older Self is going on a trip in a few days and has been organizing the project for weeks.
 
For instance, which face creams to take. Face creams? The Younger Self did not know what those were. The Younger Self used whatever soap was at hand, whatever water for that matter. Packing for the face of the Older Self takes deliberation. Moisturizer, astringent, make-up remover, and eye cream remain essentials. Add to those grooming necessities: hair dryer (not a hotel, this trip), the flat iron, two brushes—one just for the bangs (a left-over style from the Younger Self), the other for the rest of my head to give it heft. My Older Self needs, as well, volume-increasing shampoo and the special rinse so her hair dye doesn’t turn orange, and a spray to imitate a natural shine again. And I can’t forget the make-up itself. Well, I wouldn’t. My Older Self has too much of it, always purchasing still more when a company offers a make-up-bag imprinted with daisies or hot pink zigzags and filled with sample products. My Older Self has at least fifteen of these makeup bags, many with contents intact, in case. My Younger Self, if she took a lipstick, well, she was set.
 
My Younger Self is horrid when it comes to reminding me that she is still somewhere in existence in my Older Self, particularly when I get to packing for my feet. You laugh? That’s a consideration these days. My Younger Self in summer wore a pair of sandals—good for everything she did. Maybe—and I’m not sure here—she threw in sneakers. They would require socks, so maybe not. My Older Self must consider support knee highs and the shoes that would make those stockings less conspicuous. Shoes for walking. Shoes for going to the theater. And nothing can show the toes—no, not the toes of the Older Self. Vanity prevails. Shoes that match the red jacket, the blueprint jersey (that cost too much), the pants. Oh,  which pants fit? Which look presentable? The Older Self can’t be packing half a dozen pairs of pants! A skirt? God, no. A skirt would require a slip, pantyhose. (I know hosiery is not in style, but you should see her legs; you’d forgive her.)

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​My Younger Self once folded a few pairs of pants and tee shirts directly into a car (no suitcase!) to travel across Canada. My Older Self says, Shut up, I remember.
 
My Younger Self traveled with a notebook and pen, a paperback to read. The Older Self needs her MacAir, her Kindle, her cell phone, the wires and cords and attachments that keep all these working. She tucks these into a carry-on along with the portable Water-Pik and electric toothbrush and hair dryer and finds she has a suitcase of appliances. Where to put all those clothes?
 
My Younger Self taunts: Ha ha, of course you are not taking a bathing suit! Remember those two-pieces I, your Younger Self, wore all the time? Weren’t they cute? I know you still hoard in a drawer that Lands’ End one-piece from twenty-two years ago. That suit still sort of fits, doesn’t it? But you wouldn’t dare.
 
My Younger Self must be stifled, smothered. And she is, finally. I’m forced to sit on that suitcase, forcing it to close. Shutting her up for a while. 

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​​Jackie Davis Martin’s stories have been published in anthologies, including Modern Shorts, Love on the Road, and Road Stories, as well as in print and online journals. Her first memoir, Surviving Susan, was released in 2012 and a novel, Stopgaps, came out in May of 2021. Jackie’s second memoir, Those Several Summers, was just published in Spring of 2024. The memoir concerns serious decisions and choices she had to make over the course of several summers in the mid 1980’s. When she is not writing or teaching, Martin has enjoyed, along with her late husband, Bruce, full seasons of San Francisco’s Opera, its Ballet, and its Symphony, as well as performances at many of Bay Area’s many theatres.

Other works in this issue:
Fiction:
​"Tevye" One Afternoon 

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