Ms. Magazine's 35th Anniversary issue is on the newstands. I am pretty sure that I bought the first issue in July 1972.
It seemed like the right thing to do.

Everything I had always imagined for myself had just come crumbling down. The doctor husband, lifetime marriage, big house in the suburbs, 4 perfect children, stay at home mother, join a bridge club, dabble in a little philanthropy, etc., etc.

That March, my husband announced he couldn't be married anymore. Our children were almost 3 and 1. It was years later that he admitted to me that he was gay. There were some things you just didn't talk about back then and there had been no signs in terms of our intimacy level during our 5+ years of marriage.

I became the first to ever get divorced in my family - the family that was all living 3,000 miles away. The girl who had finallly made good after her flameout at Catholic school..."and here we go again with her".

But later I became the first in my family to take a child support case to the Court of Appeals and win and do most of the research myself to keep the cost down! (Good grief, it was the year he gave more to a charity than he paid to his kids).

I became one of the first to fight for a credit card in my name (back then if you didn't have a husband to have his name on the card, no card)

I became one of the first to put my kids through college with no help from their father.

I became one of the first to forgive my husband, not for leaving me (I had done that years before), but for emotionally abandoning his kids.

And I became one of the first to have their children thank them for never saying a bad word against their father (I am sure I said one or two) and always supporting and facilitating them to ensure they preserved a relationship (how ever small) with him. (I knew I couldn't be their mother and their father and knew how special a relationship with both of your parents should be).

I gathered strength from a consciousness-raising group that lasted more than 20 years.

I marched (pushing my children in strollers) for ratification of the equal rights amendment.

And eventually, I became a senior executive in Corporate America at a time when the glass ceiling was very much in tact.

And then one day, I quit and married again after being divorced for 27 years. But I did keep my last name, the only I had owned and for which I had built the brand for 33 years (and yes, it was my first husband's last name too!)

And looking back, we all survived - in fact, we thrived, just in different lives than we had planned - and I wouldn't change a thing!

And I am pretty sure that without the National Organization of Women and Ms. Magazine and all the brave feminists out there over all those years, I wouldn't have even thought to have done most of it, let alone have succeeded in doing it.

Thank you Ms.Magazine. May you publish for another 35 years!

Gillian Parrillo
SacWomen