"MY LIFE AS A WOMAN"

MY LIFE AS A WOMAN

INDEPENDENCE IS A BREATH OF FRESH AIR

I was born on September 18, 1949, at 8:30 am. I am a Virgo, Leo moon rising and born on the cusp of Libra. For those of you who do not follow astrology or any other type of psychic or paranormal stuff I do not care because I have been a dreamer and a sort of psychic my whole life. I tried to suppress it because religious fanatics and people who think in terms of everything is black & white cursed me and told me I was crazy, and it was all in my brain. Well, what I have to say to those weirdos is they are just as weird to me as I am to them.

I grew up in a time when women had to depend on a man for everything. A woman could not buy a car or home without her husband. She was a second-class citizen. The man, especially the white man felt they were kings at work, at home, and in their tiny brains that usually thought with their peckers.

It was 1950. The United States was beginning to hear rock and roll music. I remember the fire & brimstone preachers screaming out how Satan was producing the devil’s music. That was a lie, pure gossip and a fear tactic used by the ultra-conservative bible thumpers of that time.

Fortunately for me I grew up in a family who taught me all kinds of music genres. I began playing the piano at 9 years old. I would play & write music for hours. I played the ole’ blues and the ole’ gospel songs. I would sing my ‘heart out’. My grandma Carrie Soleta was my biggest fan. She would have me play for her girlfriend parties at church.

My poppa bought me all the latest rock and roll records to play either in the living room or on my little record player in my room. You could hear music blaring from the living room record player as my momma put on Patti Page new song, “How Much is That Doggie in the Window” to let the neighbors know I was walking to school. Later my mom would put on “These Boots Were Made for Walking” by Nancy Sinatra. My parents were cool, not perfect.

I used to sing all day long to different music. Everyone said I sounded like Brenda Lee. Well, those days are long gone. I have a raspy voice and cannot sing now. However, I can play a tune and write a song.

As time moved on, I sat in my room for hours listening to Bob Dylan and writing poetry from fourteen until I was eighteen. Not everyone in my family was congenial to my talents or my ideas. They would laugh at me or tell me I was going to hell to play that devil’s music.

I kept ‘hanging out’ with my piano and music because I did not care what they thought. If they asked, I could play “How Great Thou Art” for them. That song inspired me to be in the light and create.

My grandpa Boss Sterling, Irish, was a prolific writer and artist. He died when I was three years old. Grandpa Boss taught me to read & write by the time I was three years old. Unfortunately, when he died all, I saw was a big dark cloud hanging over my head. Grandpa Boss was Grandma Carrie Soleta’s husband.

I 'hung out' with musicians and all the hippies or whatever. Let us call them creative people.

Life evolves from the crazy teenage years to my twenties. I graduated from nursing school at nineteen. By the time, the 70’s arrived and women’s lib as it was called, I was rocking all over my world. The ultra-conservative religious fanatics hated the seventies. I thought I finally had my freedom. I could go to college and major in anything. At that time there was an educational conditioning that a well-rounded education was the way to go. I studied nursing, business mid-management union management, journalism, art, and computers. I attended college classes until I was fifty-one years old.

I remember opening the newspaper to the classified section to see women jobs and men jobs. I thought well to hell with that. So, I could not quit learning, reading, and going to college.

I lived with this long-haired hippy 'dude' from age twenty-two to twenty-nine years old. We both were in college. He graduated before I did. After he graduated with his accounting degree, he told me I did not need to graduate from college as a woman. He recommended that I quit college and just be his wife. I thought to myself, “He is so bad and nuts if he thinks I am going to listen to him.” So, here we were together but so far apart. He worked as an accountant, and I was ‘hanging out’ with my theater group smoking doobies on the roof of their apartment building. It was funny now that I thought about that situation. we broke up.

The adage of women must marry and have kids and a large house with white picket fence was still very much alive.

I married in my early thirties. I had two beautiful boys. I love them very much. I was still playing the piano and singing to my boys. My ex and I had nothing in common. I mean nothing but his pecker. We divorced in 1989. My mom used to take me to the beach to eat at Dana Point and be my confident BFF. I was taking care of the babies and working full time. My ex was working all hours. We rarely saw each other. That ended in divorce through lies and his cheating on me. He hated my momma. Lordy he hated my psychic mom.

I will leave that story for another time.

I met this film producer 'dude' on Catalina Island. We had wine and talked about art, music, and film. At that time, I was in professional makeup artist school. He invited me to intern and be a makeup artist at his studio. What went down with us at that time was our long conversations and our art. He also seduced me on his couch in his studio listening to the Rolling Stones, “Let’s Spend the Night Together”.

We ended up getting married on the St. Ynez Indian Reservation close to Solvang, California. That was a beautiful experience.

We worked together in the music and film industry in Los Angeles, California until that fatal night he beat me up April 13, 2000. He had suffered a mental breakdown and had mental issues. I took him to court multiple times in Burbank and Van Nuys, California.

The song that was just published on Apple and Spotify was written the year 2000 after my divorce from the film producer.

I began dating a retired song writer who used to work with George Jones. That lasted awhile. However, I was fifty and he was seventy-five years old. We moved to Austin, Texas in the year 2003. We broke up in 2005 and he went back to LA.

I worked in theater and for an online newspaper out of New York City when I lived in Austin. I worked on various music projects when I lived in Austin. I moved back to LA in June 2016. I kissed the ground at Union Station when I arrived there.

My guy I had lived with in Austin had a 38-year-old girlfriend, so I packed my bags and moved back to LA.

I will not go into depth about my men relationships.

I have recovered through therapy. I have PTSD and lately ‘was triggered’ by another man about my musical production. That has brought me to the conclusion I will be gay in my next lifetime if I am born a woman.

Tired of male egos and their bullshit. I remain friends with men but that is as far it goes.

Listen to my song on Spotify and Apple. Then you will understand. I wrote the lyrics, chose the music style though SUMO.COM. The song “I WOKE UP ALONE” WAS WRITTEN BY ME1 I did not follow any man or anyone else. I am an independent human being. I do not want to tell me what to do, nor smother me, nor lie to me, nor cheat on me. I AM MY OWN PERSON.

Everything is copyrighted. I have paid my fees and my dues to the industry for many years. I have not made a lot of money, but I am a professional writer, songwriter, and journalist. I went to college from 1968 to 2001. I have experience in the music and film industry from 1988 to present. I am not in competition at 75 years old. I just want to live out the rest of days in an art bucket, to be creative, and to be myself as an independent woman. I do not follow my friends off a cliff to be popular nor am I co-dependent, especially on a man. My life experiences have made me this way or just maybe “I WAS BORN THAT WAY” as Lady GAGA sings her song.

I have written every word in WORD. All my writing is BY

VICKI LAWANA TRUSSELLI.

WOMAN POWER!

PEACE OUT!

WRITTEN BY

VICKI LAWANA TRUSSELLI

AGE 74, SOON TO BE 75

AN OLE’ SOUL OF THE UNIVERSE

COPYRIGHT 2024

My poetry with THE UNSEALED has been published by Lauren Brill in her book. This is an inspirational journalism company I publish with too.

Unseal Your Self-Love: Letter To Remind You To Cherish Your Inner Spirit Paperback – August 6, 2024

by Lauren Brill (Author)