Read Online Purple Golf Cart: The Misadventures of a Lesbian Grandma by Ronni Sanlo - Free Book Online
Authors: Ronni Sanlo
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every fiber of my being, my self-loathing sitting heavily on my heart.
I often felt alone and isolated as a child and a teenager, felt so different from family and friends with the secrets I carried. I trusted no one, not even myself. My heart played tricks on me because I kept falling in love with girls. My body played tricks on me because of the colitis. My mother was too ill with her own colitis and other health issues to be available to me. My father worked full time, and cared for my three younger siblings and me as best he could during my mother’s illness. There just wasn’t time nor opportunity for extras like dealing with a weird kid. But really, I was just too embarrassed and ashamed to tell my parents how bad I felt and how difficult each day was for me, especially at school. The fecal incontinence caused by the colitis kept me hyper-vigilant about my body, so I kept to myself and hoped and prayed that no one would find out about the truths of my life. Ironically, I was popular in school. The outside appearances completely belied the feelings I had about myself. And now, once again, I felt so isolated and alone on the inside while a giant family event was about to take place in my honor. My wedding.
So this day, in November 1971, was my wedding day, and it was the first time—but not the last—that I seriously thought about suicide. I mused about it occasionally as a teen, but today, my wedding day, I believed if I had the means, I would have followed through. I got married instead. My youngest sister Bebe and I cried together that day. She was crying because I was moving away from her, back to Florida. I was crying because I didn’t want to leave my family or Mitra.
This day was surreal. Was I committing emotional suicide, or was this my first survivor moment? Did I die a kind of death that day by marrying Jake the band director, Jake my old friend from college? The only good news for me was that never again would someone ask me if I were funny or something. The closet door was nailed shut.
10. Ronni and Jake Sitting in a Tree…
__________________________________________________________________
1978
U.S. President : Jimmy Carter
Best film : The Deer Hunter; Midnight Express, Coming Home, Heaven Can Wait, An Unmarried Woman
Best actors : Jon Voight, Jane Fonda
Best TV shows: Dallas; 20/20; Taxi; Mork & Tracy; WKRP Cincinnati; Diff’rent Strokes
Best songs : Stayin’ Alive, Kiss You All Over, Three Times a Lady, Hot Child in the City, Boogie Oogie Oogie, Grease, Just the Way Your Are, You Needed Me
Civics : balloon angioplasty developed; U.S. Supreme Count in Bakke case bars quota systems in college admissions; Briggs Initiative defeated in California; Harvey Milk assassinated
Popular Culture : Jim Jones mass suicide in Jonestown, Guyana; Walkman stereo; And Still I Rise by Maya Angelou, The World According to Garp by John Irving, The Dream of a Common Language by Adrienne Rich, and War and Remembrance by Herman Wouk published; Rainbow flag designed
Deaths : Hubert Humphrey, Norman Rockwell, John D. MacArthur, John D. Rockefeller III, Carl Betz, Peggy Wood, Will Geer, Totie Fields
__________________________________________________________________
Jake was a good sport about the wedding even though absolutely no one from his family attended. At the last minute his mother announced that she was afraid to fly, so there wasn’t enough time for his parents to take a train from Orlando, Florida to Los Angeles for the wedding of their only child. But Jake was as gracious as he could be under the circumstances. Socializing without a tenor sax in his hands was not his strong suit but he managed to get through it all. Immediately after the wedding Jake and I returned to Florida, to a deeply redneck part of the state where he was a high school band director. We had no honeymoon. No time and no money. Jake needed to get back to prepare his band to march in the Ocala
I often felt alone and isolated as a child and a teenager, felt so different from family and friends with the secrets I carried. I trusted no one, not even myself. My heart played tricks on me because I kept falling in love with girls. My body played tricks on me because of the colitis. My mother was too ill with her own colitis and other health issues to be available to me. My father worked full time, and cared for my three younger siblings and me as best he could during my mother’s illness. There just wasn’t time nor opportunity for extras like dealing with a weird kid. But really, I was just too embarrassed and ashamed to tell my parents how bad I felt and how difficult each day was for me, especially at school. The fecal incontinence caused by the colitis kept me hyper-vigilant about my body, so I kept to myself and hoped and prayed that no one would find out about the truths of my life. Ironically, I was popular in school. The outside appearances completely belied the feelings I had about myself. And now, once again, I felt so isolated and alone on the inside while a giant family event was about to take place in my honor. My wedding.
So this day, in November 1971, was my wedding day, and it was the first time—but not the last—that I seriously thought about suicide. I mused about it occasionally as a teen, but today, my wedding day, I believed if I had the means, I would have followed through. I got married instead. My youngest sister Bebe and I cried together that day. She was crying because I was moving away from her, back to Florida. I was crying because I didn’t want to leave my family or Mitra.
This day was surreal. Was I committing emotional suicide, or was this my first survivor moment? Did I die a kind of death that day by marrying Jake the band director, Jake my old friend from college? The only good news for me was that never again would someone ask me if I were funny or something. The closet door was nailed shut.
10. Ronni and Jake Sitting in a Tree…
__________________________________________________________________
1978
U.S. President : Jimmy Carter
Best film : The Deer Hunter; Midnight Express, Coming Home, Heaven Can Wait, An Unmarried Woman
Best actors : Jon Voight, Jane Fonda
Best TV shows: Dallas; 20/20; Taxi; Mork & Tracy; WKRP Cincinnati; Diff’rent Strokes
Best songs : Stayin’ Alive, Kiss You All Over, Three Times a Lady, Hot Child in the City, Boogie Oogie Oogie, Grease, Just the Way Your Are, You Needed Me
Civics : balloon angioplasty developed; U.S. Supreme Count in Bakke case bars quota systems in college admissions; Briggs Initiative defeated in California; Harvey Milk assassinated
Popular Culture : Jim Jones mass suicide in Jonestown, Guyana; Walkman stereo; And Still I Rise by Maya Angelou, The World According to Garp by John Irving, The Dream of a Common Language by Adrienne Rich, and War and Remembrance by Herman Wouk published; Rainbow flag designed
Deaths : Hubert Humphrey, Norman Rockwell, John D. MacArthur, John D. Rockefeller III, Carl Betz, Peggy Wood, Will Geer, Totie Fields
__________________________________________________________________
Jake was a good sport about the wedding even though absolutely no one from his family attended. At the last minute his mother announced that she was afraid to fly, so there wasn’t enough time for his parents to take a train from Orlando, Florida to Los Angeles for the wedding of their only child. But Jake was as gracious as he could be under the circumstances. Socializing without a tenor sax in his hands was not his strong suit but he managed to get through it all. Immediately after the wedding Jake and I returned to Florida, to a deeply redneck part of the state where he was a high school band director. We had no honeymoon. No time and no money. Jake needed to get back to prepare his band to march in the Ocala
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