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Continued from the previous post …
Ann Fessler’s book “The Girls who Went Away has been a shock to me, and I cannot for the life of me figure out why this has been so.
I lived the history it teaches, and even though I didn’t go away and didn’t relinquish my child for adoption, I was every bit as trapped as any of the girls at the time, and I, too, was robbed.
I had grand plans for myself. There wasn’t a lot of money at home, so I was set to spend my first two years of college in a community college near where I lived. Two years of Peace Corps service was to divide the time between that and my university years, and provide funding. I dreamed of working in Africa, then returning home and earning a degree in anthropology.
I could have been the next Dian Fossey.*
Instead, I had sex with my boyfriend and got knocked up at seventeen.
Within days of my parents realizing I was pregnant, my father had arranged a back-alley abortion in Oakland. My mother had booked a spot for me at the Salvation Army’s home for unwed mothers in Sacramento.
I was a smart and determined kid, and enough of a rebel to feel comfortable taking a stand, so told mom and dad that I wasn’t interested in either option they were offering.
Then I went to my boyfriend and made him an offer: if he would marry me, it could be for just a short time … just long enough for me to have the baby and give it a name. He agreed.
I thought I’d solved my problem.
We were married on the 1st of February, 1969 in one of the silliest farce weddings imaginable. The preacher was some guy my mom found through the Yellow Pages who agreed to perform the ceremony for two degenerate kids. He had huge ears that sort of waved around when he spoke, and I couldn’t stop myself from giggling every time he opened his mouth. I got a reprimand right there and then from him, and that got the groom going.
Hubby left the reception, held in my mom’s living room, to go get stoned with his buddies, so all photos of him from the day show a guy who makes Dopey the Dwarf look like a rocket scientist.
We got a few nice gifts, including a waffle iron that came in very handy, as I didn’t know how to cook anything else.
About two weeks into the marriage, a girl came by, picked up Hubby, and they were gone for four days. That pretty much set the tone for the marriage, which ended up lasting six and a half painful years and producing one more child.
*As I typed this line, something dislodged in my gut … like some giant hair ball of defeat suddenly kicked loose … and I started sobbing and almost threw up. OMG! How long has that been there?
Continued …
oh Sandra. it’s 3:52 in the morning here. i’m having a perimenopausal sleepless night and i made my way to the blog thinking i might post something. and maybe fall back to sleep in a bit. then i read this. i will resist the knee-jerk urge to go ino psychologist mode. and will, instead, just bear witness by reading your story.
i haven’t read The Girls Who Went Away, yet. but what a profound piece of work it must be. i wonder how many other women it is helping to heal? must be thousands. at least.