Was that liberation worth it?
It was summer 2001/02. I had just graduated from year 12 and was living my best life...which looked like living at home and trying to figure out what the hell I was going to do with ALL that ambition and, all of those mediocre HSC scores. I should have paid more attention in school. But academia was not where I intended to focus, no sir! I was headed for the stage. Or the screen. Or WAAPA. Or somewhere. I just needed a little more time to ponder the best place to start. (Hint from future Lauren, just start somewhere...anywhere!).
It was an advertisement in a local newspaper (a give away that this story is from the 'olden days' where people enjoyed an actual printed newspaper) that finally caught my eye. An audition for an Entertainment Team at a Club Med type resort on the south coast. Singing, dancing, entertaining guests, kids club, etc. And they would actually pay you! YES! I nervously decided I'd give it a shot and gave it my best. I'll cut this part short and let you know that I was selected as one of the team of 10 amazing young (read horny and hormonal) talents, which was incredible and had me move out of home for the first time and right into a dorm scenario with a bunch of teens/young adults who were a whole bunch wilder than I! One of whom was my best friend Ali, this is where we met!
It was there that I started to explore the world a little more confidently, as a young woman, starting to test my confidence and understand that I could make my own rules in life. I was surrounded by other young women, who were teaching me some incredible lessons in how life could look if only I was bold and brave enough to make it happen. That I could initiate fun and games, and that I didn't really need to just sit back and wait for life to happen to me.
It's sex. Just want to be clear...I'm talking about sex. You with me?
So at the end of my 8 weeks working on the Entertainment Team over the summer holidays, I negotiated to stay a little while longer and accepted a contract to work until Easter time in a smaller group and I took a weekend of leave to collect a few more things from home. When some of the girls asked me if I'd be catching up with anyone special whilst back home, I shook my head, but an idea sprung to mind.
Perhaps whilst I was at home, I could catch up (read hook up) with an on again/off again guy I had in my back pocket. He was between girlfriends and I was an adult. I had flown the coop and lived an amazing life (grand total of 8 weeks out of home) and was ready to take the bull by the horns and initiate a little lovin' on the side. So I, ever so casually, got in touch with my old mate and arranged to catch up with him when I came back to town.
So we did. It. We did it. It is sex. We did sex. And I was SO incredibly liberated! I just went right out there and took what I wanted from the world, and why should all the boys have all the fun, and why can't girls just do that, right?! Right. It was brilliant! The liberation. The sex was good but the liberation was intoxicating.
Don't get me wrong. It wasn't my first time, and he wasn't my first partner. But it was the first time and the only time with him. The guy. You may know him from yesterday's blog, aforementioned as 'my Trauma'. But today, we'll need to refer to him as my booty call. Because that's what it was. This was before tinder. Before dating apps. We barely had mobile phones. But we did have sex. Once. And then I went home. And then I went back to the coast.
It wasn't an agonising wait for my period or anything of the sort. In fact, I forgot all about it and got back into work and then kind of just found myself in a prolonged stage (several weeks) of vaguely expecting my period any day now... before one day, suddenly and shockingly, I woke up and felt nauseous. Out of the blue, just like that, needed to vomit.
And just like that, I saw it for what it was.
I quickly, frantically counted back the days, the weeks, the months since i had my last period. SHIT! I asked Ali to cover for me as I drove to the nearest town to buy a pregnancy test from the chemist. And then she anxiously waited outside the door whilst I took that test into the bathroom. I peed on that stick, and then sat there in prolonged, frozen, serious silence for a good 15 minutes or so before I came out, saying only that I needed to go home, grabbed my handbag and nothing more, and I left. I left my job. My best friend. My belongings. My life.
That was the last time I saw Ali for more than 12 months.
I drove back up the Clyde at an unsafe speed, trying desperately to breathe through sobbing terror, unable to see clearly through my windscreen, or my eyes. I didn't drive to preserve my life, instead I drove recklessly to test the reality of my situation, willing an easier out to arrive instead of what I knew was ahead of me. But that didn't happen. I couldn't escape this moment.
I arrived home to an empty house, and I let myself in. Back into what my life looked like before I found out I was growing life in my belly. Back into a life that wasn't mine anymore, of innocence, of simplicity, of clear paths. This was what my life looked like before i liberated my sexuality that one time. Before I had sex with him that ONE TIME.
Just breathe.
I could not believe the injustice of this moment. That for ONCE I chose to be bold, and seek out what I wanted (it's sex, still talking about sex) in a complete casual and unattached way, THIS was the outcome. WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK!?
Over the next few weeks, I was forced to work through my options. I knew my head was screaming a clear message to me and my heart was saying something entirely different.
My head knew that i had about 3 weeks to save myself from being a young, single mother, forever yoked to a guy I had no intention to keep around through shared child arrangements. That this moment would define me and it would be life altering regardless of which way I chose. That I could handle anything that was thrown my way, including this, but that in all truth, I didn't want to. I wanted to choose the path that was all about me and what I wanted in life.
But my heart was already, automatically, and appalling, falling in love with my child that already existed. My heart was dreaming of baby girls, of the endless and overwhelming love i had to give. Of the miracle that is each and every life, and the possibilities that could unveil themselves over the years. Agreed, this was not what i wanted or had planned for, but wasn't this an incredible gift that should be respected and appreciated?
All of the thoughts were valid. All of the options could have been successful. It was an impossible choice because I would either be turning to motherhood alone and earlier than anticipated and struggle through life uneducated, trying to make ends meet, OR I would be able to forge my own path in life, with the burden of knowing I had made a self-centred, selfish and perhaps murderous decision instead.
That's right. That was my thought process at the time. The amount of times I considered the word murderer during that period of time was exhausting. And damaging. I resented the fact that I had to make the decision at all. I hated it so much, that one night of fun I had created had turned into such a life altering, absolutely defining moment for me.
And it occurred to me that I wasn't to be the only one impacted here...it takes two to tango (sex, it's sex).
NOTE: Life didn't look the same, socially, 20 years ago. Nowadays, there is so much more understanding about a woman's right to make choices that impact her body, her life and her career with her best interests at heart.
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