In my last post, I wrote about my life in the naughts and my teens. I’m up to college. College was an interesting time for me. There were positives and there were negatives. The biggest plus is that I lost both my virginity and my religion in the same night! I was twenty and ready to jettison both. I’ll get to that in a minute. I fucked myself up before going to college by becoming anorexic, but it was inevitable given my mother’s obsession with being skinny. I mean, it was inevitable since she nagged me about my weight all. the. damn. time. Pro tip: there is no better way to fuck up your girl child than to constantly harp on her weight. You’re welcome.
Oh, and disguising it as concern for her health isn’t fooling anyonee, either. My mother tried that tactic, and I saw right through her. She never said a word when I was anorexic and fainting because I was not eating enough to walk. When I was at my skinniest and looked like death warmed over, the only comment she made was that my waist was tinier than hers–and it wasn’t complimentary. She’s four inches shorter than I am and has a smaller frame than I do, so it ws a double-whammy that I was skirrier than she was.
When I was in my mid-to-late thirties and medically obese, I had to tell my mother that she could not mention my weight at all–no, not even under the guise of “I’m concerned about your health”. She made the face she always make when she’s not happy with what was said to her (as if she’d eaten an extremely sour lemon) and tried to push the health angle.
I was having none of that. I knew it wasn’t abo;ut my health, and I was not going to let her gaslight me into pretending she gave a shit about my health. She still tries to find ways to sliiiiiiide it in, but I shut that down. I am not having any of that, especially since I’m in love with my body now. IN LOVE. I’ll get to that later, though, when I get to my fifties.
I made the best decision of my life in my early twenties. It was a negative decision, but that’s how I make most of my decisons. Well, not exactly. Normally, I made decision s by thinking of all the things I hate about every choice and then going with the one I least hated. In this case, though, it was a decision I joyfully embraced. When I say it was a negative decision, I just mean it was the decision not to do something rather than to do something. I’ve mentioned it many times before because it changed my life. Even more than dying twice did. And it wasn’t a conscious decision, really. It was more…look. It’s like this.
When I was a kid, I was raised to believe that my duty as a girl was to get married and have children. I was to go to college, find a mister, and then have two kids. Go to church on Sundays and–ugh. I can’t even type it without shuddering. I did not want to do any of that, but I felt I had to. I went to college because my mother made it seem like it wasn’t optional. Theoretically, I knew that I did not have to go to college, but my mother made it seem like the end of the world if I didn’t. She had very rigid ideas of how you should live your life, and college was nonnegotiable.
When I was in my thirties, she said in exasperation that just because something is tradition, it doesn’t mean it’s bad. I retorted by saying that just because it’s tradition, it doesn’t mean it’s good, either. Before that, however, I was just miserable. Up until my thirties, I thought I was a freak–and not in the good way. I was a failure in everything because I did not want to get married or have kids. When I had sex for the first time and realized that it was earth-shattering, I stopped trying to believe anything I was told in church (not that I ever really believed, but I tried for so. damn. long) and walked away from religion.
I am so thankful I did not give in to my mother’s pressure to have children. The one choice I made in my life that I have never questioned. I know I would have been miserable if I’d had children. When I realized I didn’t have to have them, I felt a relief that I didn’t know I colud feel. I felt as light as air and fucking elated. I hadn’t realized how much I dreaded the idea of having children until I understood that I didn’t have to have them.
It wasn’t until a decade later that I realized I didn’t have to get married. That’s another big one, though not as big as the not having children thing. I knew I didn’t want to get married when I hit my late twenties, but in the back of my mind, I still thought I had to in order to be a real adult. This shit is so prevalent in our society. Yoou are not a full adult until you are in a monogamous, heteronormative relationship that ends in marriage and children. And a house, preferably. In the suburbs. Church on Sunday. That was the big point. When I left the church–oh yeah.
Let’s talk about that for a minute. I never really believed in God, but I tried so hard to do so. Then, I had sex and it was fantastic. That was the thing that was supposed to send me to Hell for the rest of eternity? Something that didn’t hurt anyone? Something that if you believe in the Christian God, He invented, was also going to send me to Hell. Yeah, no, son.
In my twenties/thirties, that was when I went to San Francisco to get my MA in Writing and Consciousness at New College. That was an experience-and-a-half, but the best thing it did for me was teach me to write every day. Which I still do.
My twenties were when I went a bit crazy. I realized I was bisexual (which later evolved into being attracted to the person regardless of gender), and I wanted to sleep with as many people as possible. I wanted to have my first experience with a woman–and I wanted to just get laid as often as possible.
I’m tired. Gonna stop here. Will pick it up tomorrow.