Chapter 7

As a young woman I began dating boys in high school even though I had huge crushes on girls. I guess I just accepted the situation the way it was. There were no gay people, that I knew of, in my school. Oh, a sissy boy or two, and maybe one of two tom-boy girls; but, I was not like them. I felt that I was much more feminine. So, I thought that I was in a lesbian league of my own.

Beginning in my senior year I dated boys more and more and even went to the prom on a date. I was feminine enough I supposed; anyway, the guys liked me and thought I was cute. It was flattering to have a boy ask me out; which made me feel normal and just like one of the girls.

I particularly liked double dating or dating in groups because that way my "special girl interest" would be involved and I could at least be with her. Oh yes, there were times I dreamed of making love to her but I mostly pushed it away and just felt extreme affection for them. I never talked about the way I felt her with anyone else. Through the years, my brother gave me enough not-so-subtle messages that saying girls were cute or carrying on about them would make other people think that "there was something wrong with me". He was the chip off the old block of my mother. Those two were a pair and still move in sync. Me? I'm totally out of the family picture having silently, without dispute, removed myself from all correspondence and any type of contact. Personally, I should have moved away and escaped by eliminating contact years ago.

The guys I dated were nice enough but my heart beat for someone else and always a young woman. I was usually in love with a girl when I was dating a young man. Deceitful? You bet! But that is the ways of the church, who rules all social norms broad casted via the media which included government influence. It has always been my opinion that there is no separation of church and state, only in theory. The government gives the church tax breaks in turn for influencing parishioners to vote a certain way..usually republican. Republican are for big business and support the industrial military war machine for bottom line big-profits consisting of taxpayers' hard earned tax dollars.

Vietnam was going strong by the time I graduated high school in 1965. My brother narrowly escaped the draft because he had asthma when he was 21. I am a year younger. He worked as a bricklayer apprentice and I as a hairdresser along side my mother. She had great influence over me then. When I was 21 I moved out as did my brother too shortly before he got married.

I lived for a short time with my cousins, a rather huge mistake. They had noisy boyfriends and mainly just screwed around all the time. Me? I didn't! Well, for one thing I was more into women but since I "couldn't" have one; thinking all women were straight I preferred group dating. But, yes, some drunken evening especially late at night I had sex with men. I was on birth control pills for many years until I was close to forty, in fact. Yes, I thought, what the hell, "screw 'em". I took that saying literally.

My heart ached most of the time. In my thirties when all my near friends were marrying off and the group was shrinking I became more and more depressed and more of a loner. I even went into therapy; well, one or two sessions. The first guy looked like he about freaked out when I told him that I loved woman. I couldn't tell if he got great pleasure form hearing this or not. All I know is that he started talking more and more about himself and about "his" family and lifestyle. Who knows? Maybe deep down he too was gay? I got so sick of the secrecy in my heart. It's a wonder I didn't develop a cathartic sickness; but I didn't. Instead the more I got knocked down (as in my youth as a kid) the stronger I bounced back. These ass holes of society were not going to keep me down! So, in my mid thirties, I traded alcohol for working-out and becoming active. Non of my friends were into activities. Women just were not into it; not even bicycling.

There was one guy whom I dated and actually liked but I got dumped for a "real" woman I guess, who was into bicycling. I envied him. And he worked out and took care of himself. I admired him so I got into the notion too. I played tennis alone. Well, against the school building wall where someone marked a line across in lieu of a net. A couple years later, I played tennis on a women's league and with one male friend. He really worked me and had me running back and forth like crazy; but, I loved it.

So, in my thirties I got into dancing (with men), bicycling and running. Yes, I even began to run and found that I loved the high of it. And once more my body felt wonderful and I felt that I really looked good. I even flirted with a woman and marveled at how I could influence her. Soon there was the local free dating ad that I put out. I marveled at all the responses but mostly from "straight couples" wanting a three-some. I talked to but declined one young woman who had just had a baby. I felt powerful, for the first time in my life and loved it. She was practically begging to let me meet up with her. But, a new baby, seemed like a real negative thing at the time. I knew she was bi, and didn't feel it was my cup of tea. But, bi women were more feminine. Butch women are not for me. I have had too many men and secretly loved feminine women to ever want butch.

By the time I was close to forty, I wanted to be in the best physical condition that I could be and I was. I quit smoking in my mid-thirties when I stopped hanging at bar looking for my so-called friends who were beginning to be mostly males because all the women were either married or in long term relationships with men. I was truly becoming a lone. So, for health reasons too, I changed my life style to one of non-alcoholic, non-smoking and working out and I loved it and myself. I think the first time in my life I actually loved myself. It's what working-out does to you and it's a wonderful thing. I was totally on my on and it was easy to eat and do what I wanted to do when I wasn't working. It was the best time of my life! I was on my own with minimum "mother" influence. I saw her as least as possible!

Of course, there were some evening, when I literally came home in a drunken mess and cried and kicked my furniture and asked god to please take me because I loved her so much and couldn't touch her. It so broke my heart. I begged to die. But, I never did.

After I turned forty ( and I had a great birthday celebration with an old boyfriend whom I dated for six or eight years off and on, and a special girlfriend was there too; but of course with her new husband) I became more and more alone and went out by myself to dance with a group of like high-schoolers. Well, the clitchs were pretty pathetic and so high-school that I didn't last long there. So I rode my bicycle on every county road in several counties. I rode six thousand miles one year. And in that year and a half I rode a total of ten thousand miles. I just really got into being myself.

But, then I became looking into the ades. I soon hooked up with a woman at work.