contradictions and ambiguities

I -- probably much like you-- am a mass of contradictions and ambiguities. I am a fierce feminist who spent close to 20 years as a stay-at-home mom. I have been a liberal Jewish woman in an overwhelmingly Christian conservative community. I have been now almost 30 years married -- while still having reservations about the institution-- as an institution.

Even my beginnings are ambiguous.

I have always gone by a birth year of 1956; July 1956. That is what all my ID says.

And yet-- on my birth certificate, which records my birth as July 1956-- but says my birth was *reported* to the Clerk's office in August of 1955.

1955.

Possibly just a clerical error. And I have asked my mom, and said, it doesn't matter now, so tell me...and she says the 1956 year is right.

And yet-- in my baby book, there is one card, as from a baby shower, with a short note to my mom about the baby she is about to have... and it is signed and dated--

June 1955.