How To Gain Your Independence As A Young Woman

Freshman year allowed for some experimentation in class electives, and that is how I stumbled across my love of photography.  We constructed a pinhole camera and later loaded it with a piece of photographic paper that we kept concealed from the light until we were ready to expose it later that morning down at the football field.  I borrowed a 35 mm camera from the school and started photographing my walks through the woods, my family and friends.  I started noticing small details, like the way the sun would glint off the pond and highlight my little baby cousin's hair.

The more independent I became, the further distanced I became from my Mom and sister.  One evening, with my head buried over my drafting table in my bedroom, I could hear Mom comforting my sister about something as my sister cried.  "You know, I didn't think I could have any children honey.  But then I had you."  I could hear the tenderness in her voice as she tried to soothe and comfort my sister, but it only left me feeling more alienated and alone than ever.  I was different.  I was the outsider and I felt like I didn't belong in that house.

I hated the long bus ride to and from school, and couldn't wait to get my driver's license.  That summer, I got a job as a dishwasher at the only restaurant in town and started my first savings account.  With few exceptions, I managed to save nearly all of my pay checks and after two summers had enough to buy a small used car.  Finally I turned sixteen.  Once I passed my driver's test, I had gained complete control of my freedom and was able to get away from our small town on occasion.  I started to get to know some of the other kids from my class and occasionally went to movies, the ice cream parlor or even house parties.  I rarely drank, because I had seen first hand how alcohol could destroy lives.  I never wanted to see myself the way that I had seen Joe:  blood shot eyes, slurry words, painful injuries sustained while drunk (there was that time he fell out of his truck while being driven home by a coworker when his passenger side door wasn't all the way closed.)  

I was still perceived as totally uncool by my peers.  During one summer school class, which I took for extra credit, we were tasked with writing a 10 page paper on a historical person.  We could choose any one of our liking, and many people chose to write about Abraham Lincoln, the Wright Brothers, even Thomas Jefferson.  I chose my grandfather.  I knew that he had been in the European campaign during WWII, but I had no clue that he had been present during D Day, the battle of the Bulge and many other important moments during that time.  As we pored over the official history of the Third Infantry and photos that he had of that time, he pulled out various spoils of war, including his Purple Heart, an old Nazi war banner with actual blood on it, and various German pistols.  My grandfather was my hero, as well as the person I was closest to in the family.  We would spend hours on end playing Cribbage or tinkering in his wood shop.  I followed him around whenever I could, as he always had some interesting project he was developing.  I would even sit in the easy chair next to him when he took his afternoon naps while listening to Donahue and read my books.  

He and grandma had retired early, when Grandpa was just 55.  He had a full pension from his job, which passed to my grandmother upon his death.  And even though he was technically retired, he was always doing something, building something or going somewhere.  He and Grandma lived a fairly modest life, but each summer they would spend two weeks with friends at an alpine lake living out of their motor home.  One summer they took a trip to Hawaii.  They were unique in that they always had time for their friends, or to lend a helping hand.  Life was full, but unhurried.  I saw how life could be fully enriching just by living in the moment and taking time to notice the shifting shadows of the trees.  

The more I gained my independence, the more angry Mom became.  Her small hair dresser's business was struggling, and she cited the increasing insurance requirements as unsustainable.  Her customers were mostly retired women who wanted someone else to do their hair; the shampoo/set cost about $6.  It just wasn't sustainable to run the business any longer and she was forced to close.  We lost our little house next door to the school and moved back into my grandparent's guest house.  

One Thanksgiving I was working on a paper about Watergate (I had read the biographies of John Dean and John Erlichman and was crafting an argument about who's story I found more plausible)   when Mom tried to engage me in conversation. I just wanted to finish my paper.  Later, as I headed for the shower she yelled out, "Don't use all the hot water!"  I showered and dried off, wrapping myself in a large bath towel.  Back in my room, Mom barged in barking, "I told you not to use all the hot water!"  I had taken a normal shower, washed and conditioned my hair, but there was nothing unusual in that action.  I became angry at her accusations.  I was constantly blamed for not doing something right, and I had had enough.  As her hand swept up to slap my cheek, I grabbed her wrist and pulled her hand away from my face.  We angrily eyed one another and in that moment I saw all the hurt, anger, indignation in her eyes.  I ran out of the back door and flew into the woods, while she screamed so loudly at me that my grandmother had come out of her house to intervene.

I understand now more of the fear that had to be consuming my mom as she felt me drifting further away.  As A.M. Homes writes of her own adoption experience in The Mistresses' Daughter, "This was my mother's nightmare; she'd always been afraid that someone would come and take me away.  I'd grown up knowing that was her fear; knowing part of it had nothing to do with my being taken away, but with her first child, her son, having died just before I was born.  I grew up feeling that on some very basic level my mother would never let herself get attached again.  I grew up with the sensation of being kept at a distance.  I grew up furious, I feared that there was something about me, some defect of birth that made me repulsive, unloveable."

And while Mom had never lost a first born child, she would occasionally remind me that my adoption was a closed adoption wherein my birth mother would not be allowed to reconsider her relinquishment, unlike her close friends who had had to wait an excruciating six months before the adoption was final and the birth mother's rights were forever terminated.  I also learned during this time that she had been married before my father, and that the marriage had taken her away from her family and from Napa and led her to Southern California.  This first marriage had some sort of unspeakable shame, which resulted in termination of the relationship after only a year.  This first divorce had led to my grandfather's initial rescue, when he traveled South (this time) to rescue his first daughter from a bad marriage.

That Thanksgiving was a catalyst of sorts.  I started spending more time with the neighbors from whom I had bought my first car.  They were in their late '30's with two young boys that I would occasionally baby sit.  The day of my argument with Mom, I told them what had transpired and they poured me my first glass of champagne.  The familiar bubbles reminded me of the soda that was mostly off limits in our house, but the drink left me feeling cheery after all the arguments from earlier.  My new friends treated me like and adult, and made it clear that they enjoyed my company.  The immediacy of laughter and music and wine transported me to another life where I could begin to see glimpses of just how fun life could be.  And I decided to follow the fun.