Somewhere after I became a woman, reached in the world of a late pubescence I started forming a path of all things which have passed before that event. By no means was I a woman. Understanding the meaning of what that meant was a logging of a hardwired part of the years before. I was tenacious and alive, so alive. Working in the department store gave me an interest I could talk about. We had no immediate family with events to practice living in. The family we had had a war of their own and I had been to battle as I grew to not make waves of any kind. I felt like an unwelcome pest. That transferred into how I did high school. As a class complainer I now know I was trying to anchor myself in their lives. They had families and I felt too insecure to do anything but see what they thought. Off handed ways to get compliments. In my magical thinking I slayed home to live a life of TV and hang with girls that went to private schools. Catholic girls schools. I lived in a primarily Catholic neighborhood. We were not and just another reason to feel different. They had boyfriends in the suburbs and I pretended to have one too. Meanwhile this would isolate me from the boys at my High School.
This was much like my dancing on the Dick Clark Bandstand and my imaginary fathers in Father Knows Best and the energetic music and show of Maurice Chevalier. He sang and so did I. My French Father, none of whom could satisfy my real need. The theme continued in my view of the grandiosity I had constructed. I was going to be famous and rich and know what being loved meant. I could sing and I even got asked to take voice lessons at Eastman School of Music. None of which my mother could afford.
