Ten Years is a lot of years.

My book club doesn't meet in the summer. But on Wednesday they had a summer luncheon in the most beautiful location in Clifton Virginia. 
It was a glorious day with perfect low humidity and only in the 80's. 
Don't often find those in Northern VA in July.  

A woman who had just had a Myers Briggs test again thought it would be fun to see where we are fell on that spectrum. An excuse to drink wine, eat and laugh in the middle of the day. I don't normally go to things like this because I am the only one not retired. But I decided to take off some time.  Izzy was in day care and we are in our summer slow down so what the hell was my logic.

Now there is one woman in the club that I really really like. She is fun, adventurous and kind.
I picked her up and we went over to Clifton together. 

We took the tests and then discussed our results. I find it funny that I have had this test 3 times in 35 years. All with the same outcome. I guess like Popeye says, "I yam what I yam"
Others had taken it before as well and half of them had their outcome changed, the rest like me, stayed the same.

As we went over our results and read the descriptions we would see that yes indeed that is exactly who Barbara is or who Linda is etc. That rolled into discussions of each personalities and stories then would be spun. 

I sat and listened to them all. (I was last) I found it fascinating and a tad bit troubling.
Most of these gals are 10 years older than me, a couple a tad bit more. 
But listening to them and their stories made me feel like I was listening to my Grandmothers stories. They all had a common theme. 
One got married because she had premarital sex and that was the only option for her.
One got married because she wanted to have sex. (that blows my mind)
One got married because she said at age 20 that is what one did. She felt there were no other choices. Get married or be a dried up old prune (at 20?)
Another didn't get married until she was 26 and her parents worried that she was going to be an "old maid" She broke off an engagement and decided that she never loved anyone enough to marry them so went back to school and got a masters in education. She also was very adamant about marrying within her faith which proved a long struggle in many ways in her lifetime.

All of these stories are so foreign to me. 
Only 10 years and it is a world of difference.
I am the only one married more than once without a spouse dying.
I too married my high school sweetheart and when we grew up we so wanted different things.
No fighting, no drama, we just knew we weren't going in the same direction.
Second time was the charm, but I was older, established in my career and knew exactly what I would or would not compromise on. He felt the same. We had the same goals, values and respect for one another so it worked for us.

I can't fathom the life they lead. They made a lot of choices from insecurities, society and family pressures and expectations. What a horrific way to have to make choices.
I can't even imagine not having birth control for an option, or having to have children because saying you didn't want them made you "broken".  One spoke of how not having children because you choose to not have them vs. being unable to have them,  had people looking at you like you were a horrible cold person. Wow. Talk about pressure.  

It was a long leisurely day and I was so amazed at how 10 years made a difference in our life experiences. They talked about the Vietnam war. I remember my boyfriend getting his draft card and the number was low, meaning he could be called.  Thankfully he was still in high school and shortly thereafter the draft was stopped ( i think 1973)  and the war was over in 1975 a year after graduation. One got married to avoid the war. While I am not clear how that helped because we got off target yet I can't imagine getting married for that reason.
Wouldn't that be worse? 

When Gloria Steinem fought for equal rights / gender rights they were now mom's with a couple of kids under their belt.  They spoke of being as one stated, "of my husband." To her that meant that he was head and master of the laws and she must obey. (holy shit!)
No credit cards in her own name, no credit period.
She said she had no legal rights to her husbands earnings or property. Her husband would control all of that. They went on to tell me how if someone did get divorced it was whispered about. It was difficult to obtain and generally meant that the woman had to prove without a shadow of a doubt that they did no wrong and the husband indeed did. Then they could get limited "support".  

Can you even imagine?
Only 10 years difference between most of these women and myself and yet they are so much older than me in so many ways. Yes, some are a great deal older but it still makes me thankful I didn't live in those times. 

While it wasn't easy being a girl in the 70's it was still better than what they had.
No, we couldn't play sports, no we couldn't wear pants to school, no we were still considered 2nd class citizens (has that changed yet?) 
But shortly after going into my junior year girls could then play sports in school ('73) but schools had to play catch up. My school didn't catch up until 1974. Then we had only a girls softball team, swimming and track. Took awhile to get coaches and people on board I guess.
I remember being able to wear pants a couple days a week. No jeans allowed though.
And we had birth control.

Today when Izzy and I walk by the young women standing at the bus stop they are barely covered. Bellies showing, ass cheeks showing and lord knows tits showing. I guess we've come a long way but not all of it good.

I don't fit in with these women but they do fascinate me.
Their lives are so different. They aren't friends with their spouses, they are their wives as one said yesterday. Each and every one of them said that they had nothing in common with their significant other. That is so huge to me. How do you share a life with someone you have nothing in common with? Nothing!  That isn't a life. That is something you have just gotten used to and you survive. You aren't thriving or enjoying yourself.  They said they weren't expected to be happy in the same way they want their daughters and sons to be happy today. How damn sad of a comment is that?

None felt they had the right to be happy. What is happy they'd ask? One loves to travel so she goes without her spouse. They don't read the same things, watch the same things, enjoy anything together or go anywhere together. Isn't that just a roommate?
It made me sad for them listening to their stories. Oh all of them have grown to love the other but none are what I would call a happy successful marriage. Just because you don't divorce surely doesn't make you a happy couple or a successful marriage.  They all took it in stride that this was "what one did"   It sort of reminded me of arranged marriages. They never really fell in love per se but over time, they respected one another and had children and learned to love each other in a different way. When I said that they all shook their heads.

It was eye opening, as well as sad for me.
I feel badly that they never got to know a real love and partnership. 
I felt badly that they had so many dreams that they never felt they could go after. 
I felt badly most of all because these are such smart well read and educated women who had to fight to get degrees and fight to do anything other than child rearing and housework. 
(and most in stereotypical female jobs, nursing, librarian, several teachers etc)
I felt especially bad for the ones who made choices out of insecurities and never had a voice until they were 68 years old. 

To them I was a tramp. I had sex outside of marriage and loved it. 
Oh the funny questions about that one. 
I put myself first and my desire for a career before being in a serious relationship.
I knew what I wanted and while I had hurdles from my family to overcome to get there I fought until I got there. I didn't allow family or religious upbringing to control me.
Heaven knows they tried with all tactics including Italian Catholic guilt.

The women yesterday kept using the phrase, "but weren't you raised Catholic? Aren't you catholic?"
I tried to explain to no avail. Then suddenly it hit me. Two of the women are now vegetarians. I had said to them earlier, "I was raised Catholic but I am not Catholic"
So since she couldn't understand that I said to the vegetarian, "Were you raised to be a vegetarian or in a vegetarian family?"  Her answer was, "  Heavens no, but it is who i am now because it makes me happy and I feel better." 
I said, "replace the word vegetarian in that scenario and put in Catholic"
Everyone was quiet for a moment and then she laughed, shaking her head up and down. 
She finally got it.

I wish more young people could talk to these women.
Today feminism is a dirty word when all it means is gender equality. Nothing more, nothing less. Two simple words that we have been unable to achieve in my lifetime, gender equality.
Two small words that frighten the insecure man. If you ask a young woman today if she is a feminist she says no.  If you ask her if she believes in gender equality she says yes.
Young women need to talk to these women. They need to see how far it's come and how far we still have to go. Young women need to get off their cell phones and talk to their grandmothers and hear it first hand.

I am not sure how much long I will attend these meetings. The age thing does rather get to me even though I like these women. 
And being the pig that I am something happened yesterday that made me laugh.

I asked for a cup of coffee. The hostess asked if I wanted milk/cream. She brought out her frother.  All the women were a buzz about this frother. 
As she pumped this and the foam was made these phrases were uttered.
"where did you get the fluffer?"  (fluffer this and fluffer that said over and over again)
"wow, look at that head?" "can I try getting head on this thing?"
"a woman is moving her hand slightly sideways up and down saying, "is that all you have to do to fluff it is go up and down like this?"   "will that make white foam?"

I was laughing but no one heard what I heard. 
Then my friend walked over to me and asked what was so funny.  I said listen to them all cackling over by the coffee machine. These women are still saying the same things over and over again.
So I made the same hand movement and said the same phrases above. She looked at me and burst out laughing. When the quiet librarian asked me what was so funny I said what they were saying and she said, "so?"  I didn't wish to explain. Those 10 years makes us light years apart. 

Of course when I got home I told this story complete with the hand gesture to my husband and Rick said, "oh my God didn't they know what they were saying?" 
Nope.
He said, "It's a damn good thing we found one another"  
Darn straight buddy!