The first year of off campus housing and a 25 minute trek was about to end. Five girls in one 800 SF flat with one bathroom and one porch converted to a bedroom. That last slumlord undercompensation was a problem in January when the tiny radiator started working. I was lucky that I had a regulation bedroom, with a roommate who stayed at her boyfriend's.
College was fun. It was the best time of my life. There were weird social groups and tangents but it was fun. I think I needed more attention than I got as a child.
I am not sure how it happened but I knew when it did. I wasn't telling the truth with anyone at that time, really. It came out easily with most of my friends and associates but this big secret only came out at inappropriate times with people who didn't have my back. I was really desperate to talk with anyone beside the well-meaning clinician. It still hasn't left me, that decision. It was the most painful of my life and I have given myself a lifetime of penance when I read about strong women in literature or even when I have the fortune to be witness to someone's experience or story.
I woke up during Wednesday of final exam week. I had to run to our tiny kitchen compartment that was a separate room from our actual apartment. I stood, hunched over, eating saltines. I grabbed one of the five country crock spread containers and tried to eat face to face against the mid century cabinetry. I knew that I had an appointment to make the following week. It was surreal. It was my choice.
I finished my exams and went to Milwaukee. We went in the next week. There was no other options laid out but probably because I wasn't looking for any. My nurse was very pro choice. Very anti stepford rule of womanhood. She was confident and I was wrecked. Everything happened kind of quickly. I looked at the medical devices around me and felt, like my body, I couldn't identify what any of it did, or was doing to me. It was very early. And I had my boyfriend's apartment to stay at and sleep for a day afterward. A lot of women don't have any of that.
Living life by comparison, fear and guilt has wrecked me for a long time. I am grateful for the profound experiences and they way I look at mine now.
