In this post, I wrote about how my life was when I first met my partner; the Never Never Landishness of it all. How exciting it was to me as a 25 year old with no education and no work history (but now sober and madly in love) to be embedded in a community where "real" jobs and careers seemed optional.
More than 30 years later (in fact for the past 10) I have bemoaned in a big way the hole in my life resulting from not having and never really having had, meaningful work. Yes, I had jobs, and thankfully most of them were good jobs with benefits, so I am now semi-retired with a nice little nest egg and good health insurance subsidized by my last employer. I have a lot of former colleagues, who are friends in a way, some of whom are a source of the modest amount of freelance work I do to supplement my Social Security. But I never trained for a profession that I loved, even one I eventually failed at. Jobs were a necessary evil. The one thing I really wanted to do, sing classical music, seemed totally out of reach (largely, but not entirely, as a result of my own self destructive behavior). This post (by way of the "not entirely") describes (in my rather immature voice of almost 10 years ago LOL) some of the battles I would have had to fight in my chosen community if I went down that route. So if I wasn't going to sing, I could be a professional Lesbian. What did that mean exactly? To me it meant taking any job, the "low-hanging fruit", which for me meant working as a secretary at a publishing house, being out, letting the chips fall where they might, and raising people's consciousnesses. Because typing, organizing an office, proofreading, and copy editing were skills I had learned at my mother's knee, and the publishing business seemed the least unfriendly place to be "out", particularly if you were willing to stay in a lower level job (which I did for quite some time, but not permanently), I more or less stayed there, until all the life was sucked out of the industry and if I hadn't retired, I probably would have become a living, breathing, machine doing the same mindless things over and over.
A few nights ago I watched this film and suddenly had an "aha" moment. Although I knew that when I was growing up all gay men and Lesbians were in the closet at work (although for many it was an open secret), I had no idea of the mass firings that had occurred in the early 1950s. That would have been when I was a small child, but the fallout lasted for decades. These were people who were the cream of the crop, with advanced degrees, people who had indeed trained themselves for professions that they loved, working in the State Department. Not only were they summarily fired, they were not allowed to speak in their own defense or hire attorneys. For most of them their careers were ruined. Many fell into poverty.
One thing I noticed when I first became involved with the Lesbian Community (this was about 5 or 6 years after Stonewall) was the big time "work-aversion" of so many of these women, my partner included. A lot of them were on Welfare. Whenever I hear the phrase "welfare cheat", I don't see the face of a Black woman with children, I see "Blue", the butch Lesbian who somehow managed to bilk the government out of SSDI for decades by telling them she was going to AA meetings (true) and that the idea of working made her clinically anxious (not). Those not on Welfare worked odd jobs: babysitting, dog walking, house painting, being a typist sent out to different places by a temp agency. Poverty was a badge of honor. Maybe a number of these women had been cruelly fired by establishment organizations or were afraid they would be. My partner, who had had several high level jobs at photography magazines in the decade before I met her, said that she lost the will to show up for work after she broke up with her parther (the one before me) and couldn't talk to anyone about her unhappiness because she had to stay in the closet. She never recovered or worked in a professional job again. A number of these voluntarily underemployed women had had a "Seven Sisters" education. There was a former librarian who became and exterminator (she claimed she actually made more money as an exterminator but she had no benefits). Of course there were several exceptions. There was the doctor who treated patients at the free clinic who also had an ER job (no one in an ER really cares whom you sleep with), and her partner, an accountant, who did people's taxes (mostly in the gay community). And there were lawyers and a tiny handful of academics. And of course all those women, like me, working in the publishing industry.
By the time I had my first full-time job, "out" gays and Lesbians had been around for a while so I doubted that I would get fired for having a picture of me and my partner on my desk and answering honestly if anyone asked about it, but until the mid-90s, I never saw any "out" gay person in a higher level job.
So that's the story. Careers were not the Holy Grail in those days for gays and Lesbians, apparently we had learned our lesson in the early 1950s and it stayed in our DNA for a long time.
As for my dream of becoming an opera singer while being "out"? That was in 1977-1980 and Patricia Racette, the first "out" Lesbian opera singer, to my knowledge, didn't appear with her coming out statement in Opera News until 2002.
ETA: I began singing, the second time, in 2004. Coincidence anyone?
Saturday, June 22, 2019
Tuesday, June 18, 2019
More Deep Sadness, and Changes
Yesterday my partner's doctor came to visit her and said that the chronic sleepiness (and 20 hour sleep marathons) as well as her inability to put words together (different from her typical confusion, which manifests in things like her telling me she had been in Boston) were likely due to a brain bleed. He said that people on blood thinners (she has been on blood thinners, first Warfarin, then Eliquis, for 13 years) often get them.
He said I had two choices. I could have her taken to the ER, which would mean that she would lie on a gurney in the hall for hours, not have her diapers changed, and then be shunted all over for tests. The last time she was in the ER (for something acute and life threatening that could be dealt with with treatment) she was on a gurney in the hall from 6 pm until 1 am, when she went for a CAT scan. They didn't change her diapers very often and she came home with bed sores that took months to get rid of. Or, I could have a consultation with a hospice nurse. I chose the latter.
I know that this is not necessarily the end. The doctor also prescribed an antibiotic for a UTI that she might have, and already, less than 24 hours later, she is a little better. She knows that Sunday is her 85th birthday, for example, which she didn't know yesterday. I think what the doctor meant was that what she mostly needs is comfort care. What could they possibly do for a brain bleed that would enhance her quality of life all that much? He said if she wants to sleep, let her sleep. If she wants to consume nothing but Ensure and cookies, let her do that.
But the end will be sooner rather than later and I am desolate. All the love that I didn't give to the parents I didn't love (my father, who died when I was 14 had a violent temper, and my mother, who died when I was 60, did everything she could to squash and squelch every independent thought that I had). I did not feel much sadness when either of them died. When my father died I felt relieved (although several decades later I saw what a disruption his death was, mostly socioeconomically, but also because his death removed the only person who could tell my mother she was wrong, and make her listen) and when my mother died I felt liberated. Sometimes reflecting on this makes me think I'm a monster. I hear people talk about the deep grief they feel, even over a decade later, over the death of a parent and I feel nothing.
I also didn't have any children. All the love I might have given to a parent or a child I gave to my partner.
When she goes I will be inconsolable. No, she was never perfect, and we had terrible fights. But what she gave me was the gift of letting me know that I was enough. I felt loved. I felt like the most beautiful woman in the world. We laughed, we snuggled, we made a safe haven for each other.
This morning, after having a new rug put down in my dining room and doing some cleaning, I realized that it was my partner who taught me to be a person. She taught me how to cook and keep house (my mother was a wonderful cook, but as she was always obese, I didn't want any part of cooking when I lived with her), how to watch the news and learn about the world. When I met her I was 25, newly sober, had almost nothing in my apartment and less in my refrigerator, and didn't even know the name of the governor of New York State.
Right now all I want is to spend as much time with her as is reasonably possible. I am waiting to hear from the hospice nurse. One wonderful thing is that he or she will stop by regularly and let me know when the end is near. My greatest fear is that my partner will die alone.
But life needs to go on, I know. I am 15 years younger than she is and I still want to sing. I will not give that up. I cannot lose ground whatever happens. Luckily it is the summer, so I have more time.
He said I had two choices. I could have her taken to the ER, which would mean that she would lie on a gurney in the hall for hours, not have her diapers changed, and then be shunted all over for tests. The last time she was in the ER (for something acute and life threatening that could be dealt with with treatment) she was on a gurney in the hall from 6 pm until 1 am, when she went for a CAT scan. They didn't change her diapers very often and she came home with bed sores that took months to get rid of. Or, I could have a consultation with a hospice nurse. I chose the latter.
I know that this is not necessarily the end. The doctor also prescribed an antibiotic for a UTI that she might have, and already, less than 24 hours later, she is a little better. She knows that Sunday is her 85th birthday, for example, which she didn't know yesterday. I think what the doctor meant was that what she mostly needs is comfort care. What could they possibly do for a brain bleed that would enhance her quality of life all that much? He said if she wants to sleep, let her sleep. If she wants to consume nothing but Ensure and cookies, let her do that.
But the end will be sooner rather than later and I am desolate. All the love that I didn't give to the parents I didn't love (my father, who died when I was 14 had a violent temper, and my mother, who died when I was 60, did everything she could to squash and squelch every independent thought that I had). I did not feel much sadness when either of them died. When my father died I felt relieved (although several decades later I saw what a disruption his death was, mostly socioeconomically, but also because his death removed the only person who could tell my mother she was wrong, and make her listen) and when my mother died I felt liberated. Sometimes reflecting on this makes me think I'm a monster. I hear people talk about the deep grief they feel, even over a decade later, over the death of a parent and I feel nothing.
I also didn't have any children. All the love I might have given to a parent or a child I gave to my partner.
When she goes I will be inconsolable. No, she was never perfect, and we had terrible fights. But what she gave me was the gift of letting me know that I was enough. I felt loved. I felt like the most beautiful woman in the world. We laughed, we snuggled, we made a safe haven for each other.
This morning, after having a new rug put down in my dining room and doing some cleaning, I realized that it was my partner who taught me to be a person. She taught me how to cook and keep house (my mother was a wonderful cook, but as she was always obese, I didn't want any part of cooking when I lived with her), how to watch the news and learn about the world. When I met her I was 25, newly sober, had almost nothing in my apartment and less in my refrigerator, and didn't even know the name of the governor of New York State.
Right now all I want is to spend as much time with her as is reasonably possible. I am waiting to hear from the hospice nurse. One wonderful thing is that he or she will stop by regularly and let me know when the end is near. My greatest fear is that my partner will die alone.
But life needs to go on, I know. I am 15 years younger than she is and I still want to sing. I will not give that up. I cannot lose ground whatever happens. Luckily it is the summer, so I have more time.
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