An old friend from the Wingham/CKNX days posted an old photo of me on Facebook last weekend. Usually, I can tell by the hairstyle – or my hair’s lack of style – what year it was. I’m pretty sure this was taken early on in my four-year stint at ‘NX. But I’m not certain.
Near the end of my tenure at CKSL in London, I had my hair cut short in an overreaction to a hurtful comment by a bad, short-term boyfriend. Is it a rite of passage for all young women that they date a man who picks away at their self-esteem? But I digress.
This picture by the station’s shutterbug and unofficial historian, Ward Robertson, was taken in the music library. Notice the shelves full of albums. We were still playing them on air at that time, the late 1980s.
The kid in that photo had already been married and divorced. She was about to shack up with a man 12 years older. She thought she was a sophisticated adult (sophisticated for Wingham, anyway!) but she looks like a child. I was probably 25. I can’t connect any thoughts or feelings to that photo, that particular era. I can only guess when it might have been, because of the hair. By the time I left for Toronto in 1990 it was long again, and about to get put in a poodle-perm.
I do remember a lot of loneliness and uncertainty about what to do with myself. So I worked extra hours, fell for men I ought to have let pass me by and lubricated my sad feelings with beer and wine. In other words, I was like a lot of young, insecure women my age. Thankfully, I don’t do any of those things anymore. I have no regrets, just an appreciation for how far away I am from that young woman. Maybe that’s why I can’t remember how she felt.