1975

What a great year. I was 23 years old. I was in love with a man who loved me. We were married in June. A June wedding. Oh, isn't that wonderful. The only thing wrong with that was the fact that I had already had my church wedding (to marry the man I didn't even want to marry when I was 18) , so I couldn't marry my Catholic husband in our shared church. I hated my church for a good 17 years over this.

But we had a big wedding, there was no other way with this man and his many friends and big family. He had groomsmen and I had bridesmaids, we had gowns and tuxes, cakes, and an open bar - for a long time. It was a nice wedding. After we left the reception, we went to a honeymoon suite and sat on the bed and tore open the cards and counted the gift money to see if we could afford the honeymoon we had planned. We left the next morning in our Jeep for a three week scuba diving trip in the Florida Keys. It was just the way we wanted it. It was great fun.

We would drink a bit at night, but you cannot drink a lot and scuba dive. It is much too technical of a sport to be hungover. I was already looking forward to ski season because it was much more to my tastes - I could drink like mad and still ski reasonably well. In fact, my skiing improved as my intake of alcohol increased. (And after I got sober, I had to give it up entirely.)

After three weeks, we came back to Chicago having spent every last cent. In fact, we had to run the last couple of toll gates driving back through Chicago because we didn't even have any change left! We both had jobs to return to and married life to start. We found a nice little townhouse to rent.

In the midst of this joy, I phoned my dad one day just after we got home from our honeymoon and was horrified to realize that he was drunk! After 10 years of sobriety, my father was drunk. And he never got sober again. He lived until 1993 and he never got sober again. He may be my greatest teacher.

By my 24th birthday, I had just learned that I was pregnant. Here I sit, 34 years later, and I have tears of joy in my eyes just to think about learning that I was pregnant with my son. Well, I didn't know it was my son then. I just knew that I was married to a man I loved and he loved me. I was pregnant with his child. We both wanted a child. We had wanted for me to get pregnant. I had always wondered what it would be like to get this news from a doctor and actually be happy! I don't think I ever thought I would be so fortunate and yet here I was.

And I will be eternally grateful that God blessed me with the revulsion for alcohol during my pregnancies; thereby saving my children from terrible afflictions caused by my drinking.

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You know, I am actually enjoying writing these for the most part. There are a number of things I have wished I could write about instead in the last week or so. I have particularly wanted to acknowledge awards so kindly given to me by Ed G., Pammie, and Annette. I need to properly write about that, but it needs to probably wait until I am done with this series.... thanks!