2012: the year that Gary died. Yeah, good riddance, 2012.
Let me go back pre Gary and tell you something more about myself. I was, and am a 'Women's Libber'. I was a product of watching of Billy Jean King beat Bobby Riggs at tennis, and listening to Helen Reddy's song, 'I am Woman'. My friend Carmen and I checked out every issue of Ms. Magazine that the public library had. We refused to shave our legs, but decided that armpit shaving was good for proper hygiene.
I was 14 the summer that I heard this song. I loved it then, and I love it now, but for different reasons.
When you hear the version with the lyrics, you'll probably remember too:
The most important part of that song were the words, "I'll never learn to be just me first, by myself" Boy, that was NOT going to happen to me, my 14-15 year old thoughts said.
I was, at 14, defiantly against getting married. If I did ever decide to do it, I was not automatically going to take his name if it was, in my opinion, not a good name. I already hated my first name, why add insult to injury, I thought. I refused to be seen in a dress and wore minimal makeup. No curlers came near my long hair. It was naturally wavy anyway, so I just let it grow to my waist.
I was into biking and rode my Italian 10-speed to Harrisburg and sometimes to Rowena and back even though the hills were killers. No one rode bicycles along those busy highways in those days. I could unpack and repack the wheel hubs and lubricate the fork, and adjust the tension on the chain and brake cables.
Carly and Helen and Carol rode along with me in my head those days.
Of course, I did get a job at age 15 and worked with some fun and crazy people. Carmen went her own way, probably disappointed that I was giving in to what society expected of us.
At 16, I met a guy I worked with and fell in love with him. We were together for more than a year. When he graduated, he felt compelled to leave to get away from his controlling alcoholic mother. He hoped I would understand and even more, to be there if he ever returned. But he never did, and I was heartbroken.
Then I got a call from his best friend, Hopper.
Within a year I forgot what Carly Simon's song warns about. I thought I could beat the odds. I did not have the same doubts about marriage as she did. I didn't even plan to have kids. I just wanted to be with Gary.
We worked hard at us and Gary hung in there with me and I stuck it out with him. It was sooo worth it.
Fast forward again to present day, and I think of my life as a solo person. I don't call myself single. I am solo, meaning alone. Single means living for oneself, IMO.
I am at a point where after 2 months without Gary, I am OK being alone some of the time. I just feel like I need to be alone right now. I don't know when I will be ready to be with other people every day, but I do know that its not now.
I can't stand the thought of living with someone other than Gary right now. A few days, here and there, yes, but weeks of togetherness with anyone, even if that person means well, is not what I need. I can't stand the thought of being someone's project who wants to prod me to 'rejoin' the world. I've got enough right now, thank you.
The reason I remember That's the Way I've Always Heard It Should Be, and why it resurfaced in my mind is because of those same lyrics, "I'll never learn to be just me first, by myself". I am learning exactly this now on the other side of our marriage. Its still just as important to be just me first by myself, as it was to those young women who yearned for their own sense of self in the 70's.
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