Decades Later,  Old Pictures, New Significance & a Reeling Birthmother Brain

Growing up the days before cell phones, we didn’t have nearly as many pictures available to document our lives. We still had to use film and have cameras, the film had to be purchased and then paid to have developed. Being a teenager growing up on Long Island, spending $15 for memories was a gamble as most pictures ending up looking like crap. Of course, sometimes we lucked out by taking photography in high school which made everything free and a mass of nice arty black and whites float around horrible developed. Then, I also worked in a film development shop for a bit and was able to make free copies of images from my archaic disk film. Still, the documentation of my  younger life is sketchy at best.

One of the great bonuses of Facebook is the collective hive mind. There are pieces of me in other people’s collections that they share and I have rediscovered some real gems.

Like the one above, from a party in 1985. I have zero memory of the party, though I DO remember those plaid pants!

Or this picture from a NYC Subway back in September of 1986.

Or this image from my “Last Hurrah”. I am about 6 months pregnant here  but no one knew. After this camping trip, I went home and told my mother about  my pregnancy and announced I would “do an adoption.”

Or this one, taken in 1989 at the pro-choice rally in DC.

Sometimes it feels like Facebook has brought some of my lost bits home. It is always surprising. Sometimes shockingly so. Today was more of a shocker.

The Night of the Long Island Batcave

In the collective memory of us “Goth” kids on Long Island and NY’s lower east side is a night at a club that is referred to as “Batcave”. Now “Batcave” was a real club in London, I recall, but another club on Long Island was convinced to hold what we would now call a “pop -up” club for us Goths. I have had pictures of that night for ever now. I remember being there. I remember certain things that happened that night. Guy’s pet rat got stomped on by a skinhead and died. Guy was really upset. Laura was dating Guy at the time and so that pretty much ruined her night. I, being the BFF, also got placed in the drama. So great club, great pictures for that night.. sad story.

Oh I was in my full Goth glory.. but, that was that rat’s last night, last hours, alive.

Overall, the night was kind of held in infamy due to the circumstances and the pictures. We even recreated our picture in 2002  just for fun so we mock ourselves as we aged into the “uncool” – by 1980’s standard-  Grown up selves.

Fast forward almost 28 year later. This morning another old friend form LI who DID document a HECK of a lot of those years posted an ancient video of that night.

It’s dark and sketchy and I can’t sit through the full hour of it to be able to say at minute 23.7 you can see me. I’m there someplace.. one of the big haired, all black wearing chicks… I recall we hung out to the left of the stage, but I wouldn’t trust that memory! It doesn’t matter, really. What matters is what I had completely forgotten in the memory of that night.

Greg, the archivist of all things Goth on LI in the 1980’s,  knew the date and he posted it with the video.

It was February 21, 1987.

It was the Last Night I was NOT Pregnant

I have always know the date I conceived Max. I remember clearly checking my date book, which I still have upstairs in my attic in my files, right after one clinic doctor informed me, erroneously, that I would have a baby in September. I knew he was wrong, but after the appointment, shocked, sat in a diner in NYC and ate a BLT (It might have been a bacon and Swiss.) and checked my datebook. February 22nd was the day. And I was right as Max was born November 14th.

So all these years I have had these few pictures, but never put them together in the timeline. I never realized until this morning how significant this already crazy story of “the Batcave night” was until, I saw the date. I always knew that the 22nd was the Sunday, but never realized what had happened the Saturday night before.

Yup, I went out and partied till God knows when in the AM with all my Goth friends on the Saturday night, then went to NYC in the Sunday to be wined and dined by my much older/ boss/boyfriend/lover. The sponge failed and Max became.

Looking at these pictures now, they have so much more significance. Of course, I didn’t know at the time, but inside me a tiny egg was ripening and getting ready to go forth.  Now, I see the last night of my non-adoption affected existence. I see the very last vestige of the old me. Yeah, it might not seem like much.. all dark and loud.. but it was all soon to be over and I never went fully back to be that same girl again.  Of course, we never can, Adoption relinquishment alters us to fully.. but how amazing to have these last images and to KNOW that they are the last.

I can’t believe I have had them all these years and just never knew the date.

I Wanted to Tell Her

What I would tell that still 18 year old Goth goddess?

Of course, the simple answer would be “STAY HOME”. I can’t help but to wonder now.. what if I had met some cute Goth boy that night and I blew off “him” to see a new boy the next day. I would have –  if given the chance!  Max’s father was supposed to be just a fun thing to do..not life altering. I had no hopes for a future with him. I was there to be wined and dined and given a taste of a New York City that would probably never be in my grasp again.  My dream then was still all art, and Gothic-ness, music and being “cool”.  So a tall skinny boy with a black MC and big hair would have won my attention for sure. I had my priorities.

But that didn’t happen and I cannot say that I am angry at myself for NOT staying home on the Sunday. I wouldn’t want to NOT conceive Max. No matter what,  I am glad he is born. So I wouldn’t caution myself about a better, non failing form of birth control.  I would let him come into existence.

I would really only caution myself against the adoption. I would tell myself that I didn’t need to loss my baby. That I COULD make it. That IT WOULD be alright. That nothing would be “ruined” and that his father HAD to be told and I should ASK for help. That my mother’s forced secrecy would hurt me more than fighting with her over it ever could. I would tell myself how no matter what trouble my mother gave me, it would be worth it and in the end, she would be happy to have those 7 years with her grandchild because she would pass and have no more.

But I had no idea then. I knew nothing about adoption or what would come forth. I only knew that my hair was excellent, I was rocking my awesome mohair sweater, and some asshole skinheads killed Guys’ rat and ruined the night.

Of course, if any of that had happened or hadn’t happened, I wouldn’t be here now, doing what I do.. so it is what it is. But this picture, now I know.. this is the last moment when it wasn’t was it is now. This was then.

The last night of innocence.