Naughty Nellie

The postcards on the wedding tables are over 100 years old, collected from Pat’s great grandma in her youth. Love cards, quick notes – what we have modernized as text messages and emails. But sending and receiving took patience. Patience I don’t think people have anymore.
Nellie was her name. There is such an amazing story inside her, details no one will ever know fully. Pat’s grandfather doesn’t like to talk about her wild days – it’s implied that she had numerous “loves” and gallivanted around the West in some sort of fever. Postmarks from New Mexico, LA, Utah, Arizona, Las Vegas: Nellie knew how to travel and something tells me she lit up a room enough that men gathered like moths.
But I wonder if she wanted the attention – from the notes many of the men hadn’t heard from her in a long time. “Waiting to hear back” most would say which tells me she was more interested in her freedom than tied into love. Love for women back then wasn’t nearly what it is now. In love, she would have to give it all up: settle down, raise a family on her own for the most part. And that’s eventually what she did. From what I’ve heard, I think a part of her broke because of it. She changed, aged quickly, died too young.
What I’d like to tell her (whether she would listen or not) is I’m sorry she couldn’t have both – independence and love. But I’m glad she had children who had children who created the family I’ve been embraced into. And we are here now as women with the same wind-blown spirits and I hope so part of me can bring her back. I hope her great granddaughters can bring her back. I think she was born in the wrong century, but then again she wasn’t the only one in those days.
So this Christmas, in honor of Nellie, get your hair sex-tossed and turn on an engine. She’ll thank you (or maybe give you the finger).