During my junior year in college I found out that the money my Grandmother had so carefully set aside for my education was gone. My Mother had used large amounts of it to pay off her credit cards, which she then ran back up to the maximum. My only option was to move out of the too-expensive condo, find full-time work, and change majors to something that was supported by grants from the state. So I moved back to my hometown, into a series of deeply awful apartments, and began studying for my teaching credential. I was temping, working two less than part time jobs, and picking up tutoring gigs on the side, and it still never seemed to be enough. I also was going without health insurance, so I was still living with pain, and still a hormonal mess. And I found when I got home that J had told everyone in town that I was a militant lesbian, and transgendered besides, which all the good Christians found so offensive that they wanted little to do with me.
I should step back and say that Italian families, at the time, were considered large. Three to four children were common; and six to eight were not unknown, which meant that there were a lot of people in their late teens and early twenties around at that time, and they were all starting to get married and have babies. It seemed like every week-end I was attending a shower for something, always invited out of politeness to my Mother, never spoken to once there. And all of these young men were entrepreneurs, starting up their own businesses or going to work for their fathers, so money was always tight and no one had insurance. Still, the babies were coming, and coming, and coming. And Mother was always out there helping, a load of groceries here, a doctor bill paid there, a new outfit or three sent to make sure a little girl had something pretty to wear. All the while privately condemning these young women, most of whom were not yet 21, for becoming dependent on men, and not finishing their educations. For being stay-at-home mothers. And yet there was not a word or dime of support for her own daughter, who was trying to do everything right.
It became clear to me that to join the club of the approved, to prove to everyone that I wasn’t really a freak, I had to have a baby. And not be dependent on a man while doing so. If I could finish my degree, start a career, buy my own house, and then have a baby, I could prove to everyone that I was not a freak. That I was fine. But I was only able to take one or two courses at a time, because I had to work so much, and so I thought it would never happen. I spend much of those years in what I now know to be a clinical depression.
Since I wasn’t finding any support among the Christians, I started attending Pagan worship gatherings, and then took an interest in alternative sexuality. On the one hand, I found myself a “freak” among “freaks”, and made close friends I cherish to this day. On the other hand, they thought my desire to be a stay-at-home mother more than a little odd, so I learned not to speak of it. If you are a part of a fertility cult, who’s guiding principal is “As I will, so it will be”, and you can’t get pregnant, you must be doing something wrong. So, once again, my health problems were all in my head, and entirely my fault. On some spiritual level, there was something wrong with me.
But they were the only friends I had, and so I stuck with them. And life got better. I finished my degree in computer science, with minors in elementary education and biochemistry, became a teacher, and finally bought my Grandfather’s house, when he became a little too frail to live that far from town. I was back in the house where I grew up, and making decent money. All I needed was the baby.
Two months later Mother finally divorced J and moved herself in. It quickly became apparent that a home with a clinical narcissist was not a place for a newborn. My depression was beginning to return when the Pagan community finally gave up its greatest gift. In the form of a young Marine with the happiest green eyes I had ever seen.
Nine months after we met, my husband and I had the first Pagan wedding ever held in an active military chapel. I was the beautiful maiden at last, all decked out in white lace and roses, while some of J’s friends stood outside and gaped in shock. It was one of the happiest days of my life.
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