"Forbidden Memoir" by Diana Weeks

I have wanted to donate my personal journals to the University of Houston Women Studies Department since they let me do research in the archives there. I discovered they actually collect woman’s stories about how lives have been lived here in Houston. You don’t have to be famous! A Cow town girl…I refused college…If you had to go to college to get a husband I just pitied you. Married in the fifties two weeks after graduation from high school, got pregnant in six weeks…became mother of three by 24…having our boy first! We had our own home…furniture and car…I’d done what society expected of women then… but in private I’m thinking “What have I done to myself?” My husband kept the kids so I could go to night school at U of H to take playwriting and many journalism classes. Mostly I’d audit…got no college credit, we couldn’t afford to pay tuition. I loved college…with no grades. My kind professor Alex got me on with CBS TV covering space shots at the beginning of space travel. I was staked out at astronaut’s homes in NASA with a dozen other reporters from everywhere, at the ready to interview the wife, if the space ship blew up. Not on my watch, thank heaven. That job leads to worthy contacts in a very fun career in news. I didn’t even get close to a glass ceiling but had excitement galore. I want all young women to enjoy their life as much as I do. I found a journal from decades ago when I managed The Palmer House in exchange for free rent. Now I’m old and forgetful…Was it really as much fun as my memories? I had run away from our suburb home into the big city to be a full time writer after the children married. The four-plex in Montrose housed women upstairs …men down…three writers and a visual artist. Our home was full of benighted drama and travel at the least excuse! I read from the old journal… ”Liz has broken up with Daren AGAIN…He had taken her to a family reunion. His mother is calling him daily to give up Liz… his older woman…and find a potential mother for HER future grand children. Liz wants them to open an art colony.” “Eddie, a widowed playwright friend has invited me to go on a cruse with him. Why not? …I’m in “lust” with the guy. He’s a magnetic kisser and has dancing fingers for my pleasure. Wow….” “Liz and I went downstairs to the artist’s “full moon” party Monday night… I left when we notice the handcuffs hanging on a nail by his bed.” “Liz went out for a smoke with our Russian translator for her play, Tolstoy is Dead. I haven’t seen her in two days.” Yea…Mr. Journal…”We got a grant to go to Athens, Greece for a World Wide Women’s Playwrights Conference… with layovers in Paris, France coming and going. What could be more fun? Recently…During a heart attack scare…I casually mention to my two grown daughters visiting me at St. Luke’s Hospital my desire to donate my personal writing to the U of H women studies Archives. My oldest daughter sighs, “Just don’t write an autobiography.” The younger moans…”Mom” in righteous indignation “Now…I’ll have to read everything in all your journals to see what needs to be blacked out.” THE END