Things That Make You Go Hmmmm....

While I was in San Antonio, in the year of 2009, I believe during the summer, I remember talking to my boyfriend over text message while I was in the car. He had been raised there, and he knew it was my first time there as a teenager/adult/person who could remember it. We talked about how much I loved it there and how our hopes were that we would eventually visit it together. I remember us joking about him coming up and bringing his own mattress. It was a pleasant and cute conversation.

Which brings me to a part that I can't remember too well. After 21 years, I have well developed self defense mechanisms, most of which involve forgetting and repressing things I find horrifying or disturbing or ugly in my own life. I think that is part of why I love horror books and movies and games. I can remember it safely if it isn't in my own life.

I say all that to say, I don't remember how or why he called me a sperm dumpster. I have a vague inkling that it was about what to call the mii he made me. I just remember all of a sudden reading this text message and going red with rage. It was the first onset of horrified anger I remember having with this particular boyfriend at this particular dating time (we dated twice and the first time I was horrified and angry when he told me he thought he loved someone else.....you know, writing this down makes it look SO BAD).

I don't remember how I expressed the crazed level of rage I had over text. I was in the car with my family and to be honest, I'm good at hiding what I want to around them, so I don't think they knew, but I wish I'd written down our exchange that day, not just the good ones we had. I am filled with horror just thinking about someone saying that to me and thinking it would be funny in any way, shape or form.

This was when I realized that the way people looked at me was not normal. That there were fucked up things people, mostly men, said or did around or to me and they had been doing it since I was 12. I realized that my rage was there for a purpose. That something was deeply, dreadfully wrong with the things I had been putting up with for years.

This definitely began my path down the road of feminism. I didn't arrive there fully, though, until around February or March of the next year, when I realized I was pregnant.

Ps. When I let this guy have it, he made no excuses, he simply apologized. I would even go so far as to consider him a fellow feminist now. How the world changes!