Read Online Girl Called Karen by Karen McConnell, Eileen Brand - Free Book Online
Authors: Karen McConnell, Eileen Brand
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Larry, David, Grace, Karen, Pat, Sandy.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Marriage and Divorce
I was in a dreary waiting room filled with some of the good folks of Alabama. Years earlier, I had obtained a Social Security number, made a note of it, used it for decades, lost the card, and never noticed its absence. But to get a job in Alabama, I was told it was necessary to present an actual Social Security card not just a number, so I was in the Social Security Office of Albertville applying.
There were forms. I didn’t need to fill them out, a clerk behind the barred window would see to it.
“Tell me your maiden name,” she said.
“Karen Strawn,” I said.
“Spell it, please.”
“S-t-r-a-w-n,” I said.
I was wearing a wedding ring. “Any other name?” she asked expectantly.
“Karen Mikolajczyk. M-i-k-o-l-a-j-c-z-y-k. That’s Mick-o-wize-ik.”
Now we had the attention of everyone in the room.
“Any other name?”
“Karen Skutt. S-k-u-t-t.”
She wrote it down. “Any other name?”
“Karen McConnell. M-c-capital C-o-n-n-e-l-l.”
I glanced over the room filled with rapt observers and said, reflectively, “It took me a long time to find a name I really liked.”
The owner of the name I really liked was Russ McConnell, whom I began dating in 1978.
A very great deal had happened in the two decades between my days in the foster home and my happy marriage to Russ.
I met Nick when I was sixteen. He was my first love, and for me, it was true what they say about your first love. It doesn’t last long. He didn’t have a car, and he stopped calling after a few months. It was a sad time for me.
We got together again in my senior year.
Today, all these years later, I can still remember the bittersweet struggle. I had been living five years of foreplay. Nick touched me. He made my nipples hard. We were both in a state of constant arousal.
We would make pacts never to be alone together because we wanted to wait for marriage. We went to confession.
Came the day that I knew we were going to make love. I didn’t want to do it in the backseat of an old car, so I arranged a rendezvous that offered a bed and privacy. I can’t say it was the most satisfying experience of my life, but I think I never again felt so powerful. We dated for two years, we had to sneak around, the sexual tension was painful.
Marriage was nowhere in the offing, and, as time went by, I yearned for a home, marriage, and security so badly that I began to pull away.
By the time I completed high school, I had been babysitting and working at a drive-in long enough to have some savings. I bought a car and rented an apartment and moved out of my foster home. Mary made a terrible fuss, and I had to go back. It seemed foster children were required to live at “home” till they were eighteen.
I graduated with many honors, and I was offered a scholarship to a college in Toledo. The program offered there was deadly, and I dropped out in my first quarter.
Dick Mitchell came into my life with all the swashbuckling swagger of a newly discharged marine. He was handsome, and I was crazy about him. He had a married girlfriend named Sharon. He shamed me in many situations, but he married me. Just before we were married in 1961, his sister told me that their family name was Mikolajczyk, that it was Dick’s legal name, and it was the name I would carry when I was married.
Dick and I had a classic fifties marriage for the first decade. He worked and ruled the roost. Sharon continued to run Dick’s life in ways that humiliated me up to the day she died in her early thirties.
In some respects, the assault on my womanhood, which I had experienced as a foster child and before, continued into my marriage. It was not a physical assault, but rather an emotional deprivation. My young husband often withheld sex and affection. He was still incredibly attractive and charismatic, but the lack of affection and the contrast in our different values and ambitions began to
CHAPTER EIGHT
Marriage and Divorce
I was in a dreary waiting room filled with some of the good folks of Alabama. Years earlier, I had obtained a Social Security number, made a note of it, used it for decades, lost the card, and never noticed its absence. But to get a job in Alabama, I was told it was necessary to present an actual Social Security card not just a number, so I was in the Social Security Office of Albertville applying.
There were forms. I didn’t need to fill them out, a clerk behind the barred window would see to it.
“Tell me your maiden name,” she said.
“Karen Strawn,” I said.
“Spell it, please.”
“S-t-r-a-w-n,” I said.
I was wearing a wedding ring. “Any other name?” she asked expectantly.
“Karen Mikolajczyk. M-i-k-o-l-a-j-c-z-y-k. That’s Mick-o-wize-ik.”
Now we had the attention of everyone in the room.
“Any other name?”
“Karen Skutt. S-k-u-t-t.”
She wrote it down. “Any other name?”
“Karen McConnell. M-c-capital C-o-n-n-e-l-l.”
I glanced over the room filled with rapt observers and said, reflectively, “It took me a long time to find a name I really liked.”
The owner of the name I really liked was Russ McConnell, whom I began dating in 1978.
A very great deal had happened in the two decades between my days in the foster home and my happy marriage to Russ.
I met Nick when I was sixteen. He was my first love, and for me, it was true what they say about your first love. It doesn’t last long. He didn’t have a car, and he stopped calling after a few months. It was a sad time for me.
We got together again in my senior year.
Today, all these years later, I can still remember the bittersweet struggle. I had been living five years of foreplay. Nick touched me. He made my nipples hard. We were both in a state of constant arousal.
We would make pacts never to be alone together because we wanted to wait for marriage. We went to confession.
Came the day that I knew we were going to make love. I didn’t want to do it in the backseat of an old car, so I arranged a rendezvous that offered a bed and privacy. I can’t say it was the most satisfying experience of my life, but I think I never again felt so powerful. We dated for two years, we had to sneak around, the sexual tension was painful.
Marriage was nowhere in the offing, and, as time went by, I yearned for a home, marriage, and security so badly that I began to pull away.
By the time I completed high school, I had been babysitting and working at a drive-in long enough to have some savings. I bought a car and rented an apartment and moved out of my foster home. Mary made a terrible fuss, and I had to go back. It seemed foster children were required to live at “home” till they were eighteen.
I graduated with many honors, and I was offered a scholarship to a college in Toledo. The program offered there was deadly, and I dropped out in my first quarter.
Dick Mitchell came into my life with all the swashbuckling swagger of a newly discharged marine. He was handsome, and I was crazy about him. He had a married girlfriend named Sharon. He shamed me in many situations, but he married me. Just before we were married in 1961, his sister told me that their family name was Mikolajczyk, that it was Dick’s legal name, and it was the name I would carry when I was married.
Dick and I had a classic fifties marriage for the first decade. He worked and ruled the roost. Sharon continued to run Dick’s life in ways that humiliated me up to the day she died in her early thirties.
In some respects, the assault on my womanhood, which I had experienced as a foster child and before, continued into my marriage. It was not a physical assault, but rather an emotional deprivation. My young husband often withheld sex and affection. He was still incredibly attractive and charismatic, but the lack of affection and the contrast in our different values and ambitions began to
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