My Story Repost

I thought today I would take some time to introduce myself to some of my new readers. Every once in awhile I like to let you know that I have been there, too.  I know what it is like.  Hence, the repost of my story.  I am Woman.  I am strong.  I can do anything.  Today, that is how I feel about myself...I am a survivor...but it wasn't always that way.  There was a time when I couldn't even decide what I wanted for dinner if someone offered me the choice.

I was born in a small town in the rural area of New Jersey.  My dad was an alcoholic; my mom had her boyfriend and her own life to lead, so as a little girl, I was pretty much on my own.  My parents didn't seem to care that much until I became a teenager...only then did they decide that it was time to keep an eye on me.  And they did so in the most horrible way...by condemning me to spend my teenage years in my room.  They found fault with everything that I did, and everything was grounds for punishment...even a coat unbuttoned was grounds for a month of detention.  I never had a date, never went to either of my proms, never did any of the things that my friends had done.

And to make it worse, I was constantly belittled by my mom.  "You're no good", "You're never going to amount to anything", "You're going to be a fat old drunk like your father."  Now, keeping and eye on one's child and being there for the child are two different things.  My parents NEVER had any time for me, and I grew up believing that that was the way things were supposed to be. Relationships?  I never had one...so how was I supposed to know how to act.  After all, when my friends were going on their first dates, I was home sitting in my room.

By the time I reached my senior year in high school, it was all getting to me.  I felt so different than the other children.  I felt like I didn't belong.  I was lonely, and all I wanted was someone to care.  So, when I hit 18, I got married...married to an alcoholic...just like my dad.  Only this husband was a nasty drunk who didn't work and expected to sit around slurping beers and being taken care of.  Then, I began drinking the beer with him...and he started fighting with me over it.  In just a matter of a few months, our marriage was in shambles.  I was afraid of him.  He was becoming more and more violent. Bills were not being paid, and there was little money for food.  We were losing our home. Fortunately, it was fairly easy to leave him.  I still had my parent's home, and there were no children. So, one day I told him I had enough and moved bag and baggage back home. 

Oh, he didn't give up so easily.  He called and called and pleaded that he wouldn't drink anymore. Then, when he saw that that wasn't working he called and threatened to kill himself if I didn't come back.  I simply told him "Go ahead"; I knew he didn't mean it.  Pretty boy was too wrapped up in himself to do himself in.  So, shortly thereafter, I hopped on a plane and flew to Atlanta, Georgia for a quickie divorce.  I don't know if they still have them, but in those days, the 1960's, they were quite easy to obtain.

I was hungering for love, but what was that old song?  "I'm looking for love in all the wrong places?"  Well, that was me.  I began running with some fairly wild gals and we did a lot of bar hopping.  In New York State at that time you could drink at age 18, so many a night we would cross the border into Port Jervis...a really 'hopping' town in those days.  It was there that I met the next so-called 'love of my life'.  He was older than me...by about ten years.  We didn't marry but we settled in together.  I was the perfect wife...dinner, cleaning...my wild life was over.  I really wanted this to work...and it did...for awhile...until I discovered I was living with a sex addict.  He began staying out all night long...coming home disheveled...with love bites on his neck...And I, so desperate for it to work...would spend night after night sitting at the kitchen table waiting for him to come home...which was usually at dawn. By now, I had started drinking again and my companion was a bottle of "Boone's Farm Strawberry Hill" wine.  And I put up with this for months on end...I knew I was the laughing stock of everyone around me, but I was just so hungry for someone to love me....and my self-esteem had always been so low.  My mom had seen to that.  

Then one day, he came home and gave me a case of the 'crabs'.  That was all I could take?  Do you know how I felt having to go into a pharmacy and ask for the shampoo?  It was probably the most embarrassing time of my life. I put him out.  He cried and he begged for another chance, but how could I? After what he had done?  Although he had never physically abused me, what he had done still was still considered abuse, a form of emotional abuse.  I went to the doctor, had myself checked out for everything.  Fortunately, I was fine.  It was shortly after that that I made my move to New York...and, oh, what a wake-up call.

To be continued....

Women of Today

You women of today who fear so much
The women of the future, showing how
The dangers of her course are such and such–
What are you now?

Mothers and Wives and Housekeepers, forsooth!
Great names, you cry, full scope to rule and please,
Room for wise age and energetic youth!–
But are you these?

Housekeepers? Do you then, like those of yore,
Keep house with power and pride, with grace and ease?
No, you keep servants only! What is more–
You don't keep these!

Wives, say you? Wives! Blessed indeed are they
Who hold of love the everlasting keys,
Keeping your husbands' hearts! Alas the day!
You don't keep these!

And mothers? Pitying Heaven! Mark the cry
From cradle death-beds! Mothers on their knees!
Why, half the children born, as children, die!
You don't keep these!

And still the wailing babies come and go,
And homes are waste, and husband's hearts fly far;
There is no hope until you dare to know
The thing you are! 

By
CHARLOTTE PERKINS GILMAN

Weekly Quote

The young women of today, free to study, to speak, to write, to choose their occupation, should remember that every inch of this freedom was bought for them at a great price. It is for them to show their gratitude by helping onward the reforms of their own times, by spreading the light of freedom and of truth still wider. The debt that each generation owes to the past it must pay to the future.

Abigail Duniway

Today's Quote

"We ask justice, we ask equality, we ask that all the civil and political rights that belong to citizens of the United States, be guaranteed to us and our daughters forever." 

Susan B. Anthony, Declaration of Rights for Women, July 1876

Coming

Because the time is ripe, the age is ready,
Because the world her woman's help demands,
Out of the long subjection and seclusion
Come to our field of warfare and confusion
The mother's heart and hands.

Long has she stood aside, endured and waited,
While man swung forward, toiling on alone;
Now, for the weary man, so long ill-mated,
Now, for the world for which she was created,
Comes woman to her own.

Not for herself! though sweet the air of freedom;
Not for herself, though dear the new-born power;
But for the child, who needs a nobler mother,
For the whole people, needing one another,
Comes woman to her hour. 

Charlotte Perkins Gilman (1911)

Song for Equal Suffrage

Day of hope and day of glory! After slavery and woe,

Comes the dawn of woman’s freedom, and the light shall grow and grow

Until every man and woman equal liberty shall know,

In Freedom marching on!

Woman’s right is woman’s duty! For our share in life we call!

Our will it is not weakened and our power it is not small.

We are half of every nation! We are mothers of them all!

In Wisdom marching on!

Not for self but larger service has our cry for freedom grown,

There is crime, disease and warfare in a world of men alone,

In the name of love we’re rising now to serve and save our own,

As Peace comes marching on!

By every sweet and tender tie around our heartstrings curled,

In the cause of nobler motherhood is woman’s flag unfurled,

Till every child shall know the joy and peace of mother’s world–

As Love comes marching on!

We will help to make a pruning hook of every outgrown sword,

We will help to knit the nations in continuing accord,

In humanity made perfect is the glory of the Lord,

As His world goes marching on!

 Suffrage Songs and Verses 

by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, 1911

The Rights Of Woman. An Occasional Address Spoken By Miss Fontenelle On Her Benefit Night, Nov. 26, 1792

While Europe's eye is fix'd on mighty things,
The fate of empires and the fall of kings;
While quacks of state must each produce his plan,
And even children lisp the Rights of Man;
Amid this mighty fuss just let me mention,
The Rights of Woman merit some attention.


First on the sexes' intermix'd connexion,
One sacred Right of Woman is protection.
The tender flower that lifts its head, elate,
Helpless, must fall before the blasts of fate,
Sunk on the earth, defac'd its lovely form,
Unless your shelter ward th' impending storm.


Our second Right, but needless here is caution,
To keep that right inviolate's the fashion,
Each man of sense has it so full before him,
He'd die before he'd wrong it, 'tis decorum.
There was, indeed, in far less polish'd days,
A time, when rough, rude man had haughty ways;
Would swagger, swear, get drunk, kick up a riot,
Nay, even thus invade a lady's quiet.


Now, thank our stars! these Gothic times are fled;
Now, well-bred men, and you are all well-bred,
Most justly think (and we are much the gainers)
Such conduct neither spirit, wit, nor manners.


For Right the third, our last, our best, our dearest,
That right to fluttering female hearts the nearest,
Which even the Rights of Kings in low prostration
Most humbly own, 'tis dear, dear admiration!
In that blest sphere alone we live and move;
There taste that life of life, immortal love.
Smiles, glances, sighs, tears, fits, flirtations, airs,
'Gainst such an host what flinty savage dares,
When awful Beauty joins with all her charms,
Who is so rash as rise in rebel arms?


But truce with kings and truce with constitutions,
With bloody armaments and revolutions,
Let majesty your first attention summon,
Ah! ça ira! the majesty of woman!

Robert Burns