Hi all,
My friend is writing a story and wants some advice. The sort of thing the ending for is below:
Option 1: Ciara finally gets her dream life late (perfect person, adoption, pets, new job)
Option 2: Ciara learns to live with her life, and in time enjoy it and make it actively better.
Thanks!!
THE REALITY OF LIFE
Life plan:
Finish school with amazing grades, go to university and get DREAM job
Get engaged at 23, married at 24, kids at 26, 28 and 31 (possibly another at 35)
Have lots of holidays, make lots of money and have three dogs, host dinner parties
Retire at 68 and join loads of clubs (knitting, baking, reading etc.), live by the sea, look after grandkids
Ciara sighed in her classic, heavy, Irish accent, chewing her worn out pencil from her school years. Aged 15 she had been told to make one of these, a life plan. She had made a short, seemingly simple one. She’d have to cross it all out though, her life was not on track. It was one long continuous struggle, bad event after bad event, setback after setback, mistake after mistake. Her few friends had perfect lives. Any problem for Briar, Kirsty, Katleen, Trish and everyone else seemed to develop into a wonderful opportunity, whereas for Ciara it was just another step backwards.
Her first problem had been her grades. She had tried but it still didn’t work out. The As and even Bs just wouldn’t come to her beckoning. No university would take her, and to be honest, she didn’t push. She was too busy trying not to be the kid that everyone ignores, but she still was that kid. As for dream job, well, Ciara didn’t have a dream job. She had no idea what to do with her life. So she studied English and History, because the most popular boy in her year was taking them, though he skipped more classes than he attended, and didn’t notice her anyway. Trish had also taken English and History and was now the head of a Tudor palace, often analyzing Tudor poetry. After a stroke of luck at age 23, she managed to get a teaching assistant job. Kirsty’s husband was the deputy head so had put in a good word. She liked the kids, but hated the role. She could have lived with it but the pay. The pay. The pay was dreadful and anyway, the school was plummeting in numbers. So Ciara quit. As she studied History for A level, even though she hadn’t achieved well, she looked for a museum job. She handed in many many many applications, all rejected but one. They needed staff desperately. Age 26, she became a tour guide. Unfortunately, some visitors fell asleep listening to her ‘soothing’ Irish accent. She also had trouble remembering all the facts she needed to know, and the layout of the small one-floor museum. They fired her shortly after she began. A year passed, full of Ciara munching ice cream and not bothering. Then Bri remembered her cousin was the head of the police in her town, and Ciara became the police department’s receptionist number 4 and tea lady number 2. Ciara was keen to attract young male officers but now she was 28 and any looks she had had were beginning to fade. Nobody seemed to notice her, nobody was interested in her. Except 2 years later when they fired her. Her life plan was already crumbling fast. Then she became a cleaner but she was not much sought after. She cleaned friends’ houses, wistfully longing after owning her own house, not renting a cramped 3 room apartment.
She had tried ever so hard to get the attention of boys at school, but if ever she got attention, it was bad attention. She’d had a boyfriend for a while at her teaching job. But he had another girl on the side, a better one. She was supposed to be married with a child by the time he came along, worrying, she proposed hastily. He was disgusted and went back to his original girlfriend. By the time she turned 33, she finally came to terms with the fact that no man would ever go for her, even as his last option. She had thought about adopting or foster care but there was so much paperwork and added stress involved that she put it off, procrastinating as always. Instead she was a babysitter for Bri’s two teens and Kirsty’s older three.
None of Ciara’s various jobs had paid well, definitely not enough for even considering a holiday out of a 100 mile radius. The money was poor, certainly not close to buying one small dog, let alone three biggish ones. And even if she had the money for food other than pasta and baked potatoes for a dinner party, she would have nobody to invite, Bri and Kirsty were both busy working-mums, with better parties to go to. Trish and Katleen lived far away and never bothered to visit, there would not have been a spare bedroom for them anyway.
She wouldn’t be able to retire until 90, pay as it was. And cottages, even flats, by the sea, had huge, huge, huge price labels, however bad the condition of the living area. As for old people clubs, her town wasn’t like that, not community based. And at age 47, she would not be having kids, or grandkids. So that’s it, for Ciara, life plan ruined, all alone in the world, dreams left unaccomplished, nobody to love.