Everything I Never Wanted

A Memoir of Excess

Barbara Santarelli

• Publisher: She Writes Press
• Year: 2017
• Topic: Social Sciences
• eBook ISBN:
  9781631522598
• Subtopic: Social Science Biographies
• Index: Social Sciences

Life in a middle-class Italian American-Catholic neighborhood in the 1950s Bronx was not supposed to include divorce, Judaism, classical music, political discourse, or poverty in the social construct. So, in the absence of friends, young Barbara takes comfort in the minutiae, the small details available to her in her everyday life that seem to be overlooked by others. But that appreciation for the inanimate world leads her on a path to the acquisition of objects and a quest for identity that dominates her choices—from her marriage and family life to her constant striving for more and more.
Barbara’s chosen nursing career offers validation and some affirmation, but falls short of providing her what’s most elusive—self–esteem—until finally, at age fifty, she abruptly abandons her conventional role of mother, wife, nurse, and neighbor to attempt a three-hundred-mile bike ride from Boston to New York. Poorly prepared, she takes only what she needs to flee her life, and a fierce determination that finally allows her to discover her place in the world—and to find true belonging.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• Prologue: Grateful for Gray
• Chapter One: Immeasurable Details
• Chapter Two: Jesuit Justice
• Chapter Three: Alternative Universe
• Chapter Four: Vacuum-Packed Lunch
• Chapter Five: Mayonnaise and Men
• Chapter Six: A Few Good Men
• Chapter Seven: Viva Villa Avenue
• Chapter Eight: The Number-Four Train
• Chapter Nine: Homeostasis
• Chapter Ten: Hubris
• Chapter Eleven: Lucky
• Chapter Twelve: Swinging Door
• Chapter Thirteen: Keystone
• Chapter Fourteen: Safety in Prison
• Chapter Fifteen: Gluttony 101
• Chapter Sixteen: Emergency Brakes
• Chapter Seventeen: Beyond Balance
• Chapter Eighteen: Turning Point
• Chapter Nineteen: Leaving Loneness
• Chapter Twenty: Existential Decisions
• Chapter Twenty-One: Cruella Strikes
• Chapter Twenty-Two: Math Matters
• Chapter Twenty-Three: Leda
• Chapter Twenty-Four: Boston
• Chapter Twenty-Five: Homestretch
• Chapter Twenty-Six: Moving On
• Epilogue: Summer in Leda’s House