“When I was thirteen, I mapped out my life...”

StoryCorps Facilitator Lillie Love talks to her friend and fellow Facilitator Anthony Knight about how her life has been different than she’d imagined.

Lillie died on June 25, 2010 in Atlanta, GA. View her tribute page here.

Listen to
Recorded in Atlanta, GA.

Credits

Produced by Vanara Taing.

Facilitated by Amanda Plumb.

Recorded in partnership with WABE.

Transcript

Click here to read the transcript for this story.

Interview transcript

Lillie Love (LL): When I was thirteen I mapped out my life and made some critical decisions about what kind of life I was going to have. I thought that at 52 I would be married with children and hopefully grandchildren. But instead, very little of that actually happened. I did get married, it didn't last. I was pregnant several times and I had miscarriages. And so...it's like designing a dress while you're wearing it. You know, you can't really fashion a life for yourself at thirteen and think that that's going to fit you for the rest of your life. So I realized, I'm not going to be the wife and I'm not going to be the mother. What else is there for me? And what there was for me is to be a terrific sister, to be a wonderful friend, to be a great aunt. So I tell people, the life that I have now is not the life I thought I would have but it's the life that is perfect for who I am. And I never would have thought that when I was younger. And I don't make things bigger than what they are. I don't borrow trouble, like, people like, 'Oh, I can't wait till Friday.' You don't hear me saying that. I thank God for ordinary Tuesdays. Because the ordinary days means that nothing really great happened but nothing really bad happened either.

Anthony Knight (AK): I think more people should live by those kinds of rules.

LL: Yeah! Thank God for an ordinary boring Tuesday where you're thinking, life is in a rut. I love ruts because it's predictable.

AK: Well, let's project into the future.

LL: I don't do that anymore. I learned my lesson about creating clothing for twenty years down the road. You don't know what size you're going to be, you don't know what's going to fit you. I have learned to let the universe give me what it is that I need. So, if I can keep it simple, and I can keep it real, and my family's okay, I'm okay.