YE OLDE IMAGINARY ME;
I was running a fever yesterday. I got very sleepy at work (makes for poor waitressing-- "Get your own fork! Ya shouldn't have dropped the first one eh!") but then once I got home I was burning up and wide awake, lying in bed in my underwear. And, as feverish insomniacs are likely to do, I began to think some pretty strange thoughts. And the conclusion that I came to is this: I am so glad that I wasn't born in 1691. The 1712 version of me (as opposed to the 2012 version of me) would have a pretty rough time.
I would have two children, Bertha and William, and I would be pregnant with my third: a girl, Caroline, who would die on her second birthday due to cholera. My husband, John, would be thirty-eight to my twenty-one, and he would be a farmer whilst I occupied myself with the house and children. We would have one bedroom, and one bed, in which the four of us slept together. (The 2012 me hates to bed-share, so I find this idea particularly offensive!) In 1712, no white people really lived in Wisconsin, so I would be in the east somewhere, I reckon, Boston or Philadelphia maybe. (Although I am American, I don't really know much about my family history or my heritage, since I don't come from money and there are no records. This customer at work the other day thought he was being particularly funny by asking me what part of Ireland I came from, since so many Americans have Irish roots. I didn't get it. "Oh, no sir, I'm American," I kept repeating. :-| )
John would take our family's crops down to the local general store and sell them for whatever the going rate was. I would then use the money received and trade it in for luxury items, like spices and sugar, and cloth so that I could sew clothes for myself and the children. We would have one book, a family bible passed down from John's grandfather, and he would be able to read it a little, although I would only be able to pick out letters. Since we wouldn't have been able to afford proper glasses, and I am particularly blind, most of the world would be a blur of colours to me. Luckily, I wouldn't need to drive or operate any heavy machinery that hadn't been invented yet!
Whereas 2012 me lives in a town 4,500 miles from the one in which I was born, 1712 me would have never travelled more than 20 miles from home in her entire life. I used to complain, in my house that I lived in last winter, that the sporadic hot water we had was not a "first world problem" but then, when I think about how 1712 me would have to heat all water for the monthly baths on a wood-burning stove...... in fact, I wouldn't have any heating at all-- just a fireplace. Keep in mind, of course, that I don't really know much about history and 1712 me and her habits and lifestyle are more of a figment of my imagination than anything. 1712 me was very pious. She prayed to God morning and night. She emptied chamber pots daily, and filled (probably the same) pots up with drinking water at the stream. She only had three pairs of shoes in her entire life. Poor 1712 me. She didn't even like her husband much. She broke her arm as a child and couldn't use her right hand properly. She only ate meat fortnightly. She'd never tasted a mango.
And then, I remember that 1712 me would be dead too! Because the heart surgery that I had when I was 15 was not an option back then. And daaaaayum am I glad to be 2012 me.