“I wanted to find my own identity and be autonomous at the same time that I wanted to find a mate who would rescue me, who would provide and protect. Of course I wanted to be able to provide for myself. Just in case that did not happen, I wanted the luxury of backup. I was not a free spirit. I wanted to blend old-fashioned values learned at home—which cautioned me to be conservative, take care, and be responsible—with New Age spirituality and radical ideas of freedom and choice. No matter how much I might have longed to free myself from a sense of responsibility to the collective good, to family and community, I was psychically bound. I had the strength to rebel, but I did not have the strength to let go. I was, like generations of women before me, split, torn between two competing identities—the longing to be the liberated, independent, sexually free woman and the desire to settle down and be domesticated.”