“It is only normal human nature to want to marry and procreate.” – My college advisor, 1978
Today is a very strange day for me. If I had stayed married to my ex-husband, today would be our 30th anniversary. In retrospect, I got married young, at the age of 24. In retrospect, it feels like our wedding was yesterday, 50 years ago, and never happened.
Growing up, I really didn’t think about marriage very much. I never had the vision of the knight in shining armor, the two kids and the house with the white picket fence, or being a soccer mom. I assumed I would get married and have children (that’s what people do, after all), but it was never the first thing on my mind. I thought more about pitching for the Mets, being a professional boxer, or writing a sports column for the New York Times. (Talk about missed clues!)
I entered college in the fall of 1976, and it surprised me how so many of my female classmates were focused on their “Mrs.” Degree. Some dropped out after only a few weeks because they missed their boyfriends back home. I enjoyed college life – from marching band to softball (another clue!) to pledging a sorority – and while I dated a bit, I was not looking for a husband. First of all, there were just too many to choose from; I couldn’t imagine how you could narrow down the field. And, more importantly, I still had that uncomfortable feeling I had since I was young that there was something different about me that did not include the desire to find a husband and settle down into domestic bliss.
My high school was very small; there were 99 in my graduating class, and while there were several thousand in my class at college, after a few semesters, it too felt stifling. I decided I wanted to drop out of school. I didn’t know what I would do; I just knew I didn’t want to be in school anymore. I went to see my advisor and told him I felt out of place because I wasn’t looking for a husband. He looked over his glasses and said in his Kentucky accent, “Why Doreen, it is only normal human nature to want to marry and procreate.”
Wow, that was helpful. Continue reading
Religious Refuse 