A Mysterious Christmas Card

The envelope had my name on it, but I wasn't familiar with the return address. I took out the Christmas card and I didn't recognize the toddler twins pictured in their Santa caps. Or their names for that matter. When I read the greeting, it was from Carol and Jim. I didn't recall knowing any couple named Carol and Jim. 

Finally there was a photo of a bride and groom standing next to a couple who looked like parents. I had no clue who any of these people were.

But, there had been a wedding, some children had been born, and people I didn't seem to know apparently wanted to tell me all about it.

After going through the other cards from yesterday I took a look at the mysterious card again, this time with my reading glasses on. While staring at the pictures for a time, I realized that the first name of the bride was vaguely familiar. A very unusual moniker, it was the same as my older daughter's best friend in first grade.  It WAS my older daughter's former friend. Her two front teeth had grown in quite nicely.

Then I looked at the parents. Wait a minute, that's her mother with a different husband. Or the old one had grown a foot. She had been MY friend. But that friendship waned many years ago following a strange holiday party with several other female friends.

A group of us decided to get to gether to exchange presents a couple of days before Christmas. Everyone else received smelly soaps, scarves and other girly things, but I was presented with gifts more suitable for an armed and dangerous feminist. For some reason they all thought I would like receiving bizarre anti male slogans, meticulously handpainted on driftwood, suitable for hanging in the bathroom. Of what?  A lesbian stronghold?

This was the late seventies, a breeding ground for many empowerment groups, none of which I had ever had an interest in joining.But all these other women espoused them. Maybe they assumed my confidence came from consciousness raising. As if it couldn't come from someplace else. Clearly they had the misguided thought that I felt men were the enemy.    

Were the odd "feminist" presents because I was newly divorced and about to return to work? Was it because I already talked the talk and walked the walk of women who had fought sexual harassment and deserved equal pay for equal work, blah blah blah?

It was clear to me that they had confused my politics with who I was. 

I thought I was tall, beautiful and athletic. Since I was dating attractive persons of the male persuasion, the men thought so too. WTF were these babes thinking? That my stand on equality precluded anything feminine?  My only thought was that those women didn't know me. My feelings were hurt and I withdrew from their company almost overnight.

A few years later when my ex wanted to go through annulment proceedings -- the Catholic's church's homage to divorce -- I went to the archdiocese for an interview.  This was an option I didn't have to exercise, but I was curious. 

After a battery of personality tests and a strange series of questions from a priest who made several sexist inquiries I wouldn't answer, I finished up the day having a long conversation with a young, empathetic male psychologist. 

As our conversation wound down he made reference to several feminist writings, which he just assumed I was familiar with. I think he was proud of his ability to make a connection with a woman emerging from the ancient beliefs of an old system into the revolution that was currently underway.

I told him I had heardof a few of the books he referenced, but never read any of them. He looked at me, quite puzzled, since he had just assumed from our discussion that I had taken women's studies in college or done extensive reading in the area of feminist teachings.  I was having a flashback to the perceptions of my former friends.

"No,"  I answered.  "I didn't have to read about any of that stuff. I lived it."

My politics aren't me. Nor are the sports I played. Most recently a guy I know, who is gay, which may or may not be relevant, said he just assumed I was a lesbian when he heard I had played softball. Now that he knows me, he just laughed at his assumption and felt comfortable telling me about it. Nevertheless, my feelings were still a little hurt. Too often perception about me has become somebody's reality. 

All this reflection because of a Christmas card from someone I haven't spoken to in decades. Now I can reflect on why they decided that this year was the time to reconnect. 

The holidays can do that to you.