Oral History with Michelle Oshinski, June 9, 2015 (Ms2015-007)

TRANSCRIPT: MICHELLE OSHINSKI

Date of Interview: June 9th, 2015 Interviewer: Megan Lee Myklegard Place of

Interview: 413 Major Williams Hall, Virginia Tech Length: 1:11:42 Transcribers:

Megan Lee Myklegard

Megan Lee Myklegard: Hello, this is Megan Lee Myklegard it's June 9th, 2015 we

are in 413 Major Williams Hall and I'm with Michelle Oshinski. Would you like to

introduce yourself?

Michelle Oshinski: Uh yeah I'm Michelle Oshinski I go by Miki, I was born in

Baton Rouge, Louisiana on October 29th, 1991.

MYKLEGARD: Alright, so lets start at the beginning. Can you tell us about your

parents, how you were raised, where your from, just kind of give us the whole story?

OSHINSKI: Well, we moved around a lot my dad worked for ExxonMobil. So while I

was born in Louisiana, a few months later we moved to Texas then to New Jersey

and then to Virginia. I have two older brothers, biological brothers,I say that

because there were a ton of guys who just kind of lived in our house [laughs]

cause they were friends of the family and I just grew up with so many guys that

I feel like I have 20 million brothers. But yeah so they're both older than me,

my mom and my dad are Catholic my mom converted so that she was very, very

religious for a very long time, it made growing up very interesting. Like

Halloween— we were never allowed to be anything creepy or 00:01:00slightly terrifying.

She was very against cross-dressing anything like that; she was very strict

about it. She has since cooled down, [laughs] which is fantastic because she's

my best friend and I'm like finally this is, this is a good relationship. My dad

worked a lot, I didn't understand it as a kid I felt kind of sad— I mean I loved

my dad we were really close, we still are, but he was never around and I was

really confused and I realized, of course, later that "Oh, you were supporting

us cause that's a thing that has to be done!" I don't remember much of my

childhood to be perfectly honest; I've got some PTSD issues that took away

most of that, but what I do remember is a very happy childhood. We struggled

with my fathers temper for a little while, he um, he has epilepsy and one of the

medications they gave 00:02:00him—they don't warn you about this— but it causes mood

swings, so he was very aggressive and he didn't realize it. But I think when I

was like six or seven, maybe a little older, he had this dream and he told us

about this a few years ago, he had this dream that child services came and took

us away because he was so angry and it terrified him. My mom looked at him and

she goes, "If you don't go to therapy and fix this"— she said she'd leave. And

that was the scariest thing for him and because of that he like got help and now

everything is fantastic. I mean don't get me wrong, we still yell at each other

cause we're Irish and Scottish and we argue like crazy people, but um yeah he got

help and that was really influential to me to be like "Hey, when you

recognize there's a problem, do something about it." Which helped a lot

because I had to go into therapy for a long time, but life was really 00:03:00 easy.

They had high expectations for us in school, mainly cause they knew we were

smart enough. For a long time we always joked, "You never give us positive

affirmation! Why don't you tell us we've done good," like you'd get a B and

they'd look at us and be like "Why didn't you do the extra credit?" [laughs]

we'd be like "Really, that's that's an 80 right there," but like at this point in

life they're just happy when we try our best. Yeah, so most of life was just

being silly. I was in Catholic school for a little bit and then we moved to

Virginia and went to public school, so very difficult transition. I will tell

you in Catholic school, like as children people are relatively even. And I was

in a really small town too in New Jersey, so like everything was just chill. I

was really popular, people thought I was awesome because I was just weird— like

I was weird and they loved me. I go to a public school and I'm weird and

they hate me like they don't want anything to do with me. That was really

traumatic I was like "Oh my gosh I have no friends!" I was that kid that sat on

the little bridge of the playground and stared at the wall for recess cause no

one played with me. [laughs] Until like fourth grade or something and then I got

friends, but I don't know the one thing I'm always proud about is that I never

compromised myself to make them like me. It was sad and it 00:04:00was lonely but

somehow I knew not to change. To be like "No this is how I am why would I

pretend to be someone else?" I still to this day am like "Why would I do

that? This is me and I will be me." So yeah childhood was interesting. My

brother Chris, he's the middle brother, he and I were best friends. Of course

the teenage years were rocky and now we are best friends again its fantastic

cause he's only two years older than me so we're really close. My eldest brother

Stefan, he uh was like, I idolized him cause he was five years older and I was

like "Oh my gosh look at all the things he can do in video games and look at him

doing flips on the playground" like oh my gosh it was the coolest thing and that

was it i just idolized him; I wanted to be him. I should've understood at

that time was telling me something. [laughs] But, I didn't really get it for

awhile. Um 00:05:00yeah it was relatively normal, like people assume something crazy has

to happen for someone to be trans-gendered like a trauma and while yes I had

traumas, it wasn't something that I feel triggered it. So my life was really

happy and I look back on it now and I'm like "I had a damn good childhood. This

is fantastic." And I will call my mom and be like "Mom, thank you. You are

wonderful." [laughs] She just laughs at me she thinks I'm the stupidest

person sometimes. She's like "I get it okay." Everyone needs reminding. Everybody

does. So yeah I don't know it wasn't that eventful as far as I remember.

MYKLEGARD: Okay so you said that you and your father weren't close, do you think

it was just primarily because he was working so much?

OSHINSKI: Yes um there was a significant period of time maybe two years, like I

said I don't really remember, where he, we would only see him on the weekends.

Because he traveled so much. He, in Exxon, I cant remember exactly what he did

but he managed all of the overseas plants. Which is a lot he has been to every 00:06:00continent except Antarctica. He has been to lots of countries. So doing that

took a lot of his time and as a kid I didn't understand why he was gone. I

didn't understand that "Oh, his job takes him these places and those places are

far away." Like it didn't enter my mind. There was the thing— it

bothered me as a kid— that he couldn't tell our stuff apart, like my brothers and

I and I realize now most of my stuff was hand-me-downs so that's probably why.

But he'd be like "Whose shoes are these?" and I'd be like "Seriously dad those

are my shoes, look how tiny they are compared to the other shoes like ehh?" like

I just didn't understand that. We had this ritual which was like the best

thing in the world, he would come home from work and it was like always in the

middle of dinner, I don't know why it was just like perfect timing. And he'd

come home and the dog would bark and I'd jump out of my seat and my mom and my

dad do this cutest thing and they've done it since they got married he comes

home from work and she either meets him at the door or at the sink and she gives

him a kiss. Every time. Everyday. And its just the most cute thing ever so what

I would do was I would run to the door first, and get outside so I could grab

his coffee mugs cause he always brought two like a little one and a big one I

don't I 00:07:00still don't know why he always had two I think he just needed that much

coffee. Cause I couldn't carry his suitcase his like briefcase cause it was too

heavy cause he had like a computer and a bunch of stuff in there so I'd get the

coffee things and I' d run up to the sink and I'd rinse them out and I'd put

them in the dishwasher so they were ready for the next morning. And when I got

older I would just hand wash them so it was done faster, and I would do that

every time. And he would give me a hug after he gave my mom a kiss and it was

just like, that was our thing. That's why, even though we weren't super close,

we were still close enough that I was like "This is my dad I love my dad I can

tell him things." My brothers actually, one of my brothers just talked to me and

was like "How are you so close with dad? He was never around like how did you do

that?" I looked at him and I was like "Well first of all, I would go to the

door everyday when he came home from work if I was home." Second of all when I

got older to have like intelligent adult conversations with him, my parents had

these like these tiny walk-in closets and so he would go in and close the door

and I'd lay on their bed and I'd start talking to him about work while he's was

changing into normal clothes. So I had like ten minutes a night of him unpacking

his briefcase and like changing into his clothes that I could just like talk to

him. And so as I got older we got closer. Which was fantastic but I had to like

explain to my brothers "Words, guys. 00:08:00Words, words are useful."

MYKLEGARD: [laughs]

OSHINSKI: But yeah just as a kid he was gone a lot, I think that was the biggest

thing. Um, and and like I said he had a bit of a temper, which was sad, but I

mean I don't really blame him. We were probably—we were relatively well-behaved

in public not so much at home. We were pretty much hell raisers according to my

mom so there's that.

MYKLEGARD: Okay, so how did you feel, you said your parents like transitioned

into Catholicism?

OSHINSKI: Well my mom did yeah, she was Presbyterian after she married my dad

and had my first brother Stefan she converted. I always call my brother Stefan

their unholy baby cause he wasn't born Catholic. She was a born

again Christian, I don't know. My dad was raised Catholic; he has since gotten

less religious as the years have gone by. He tries very hard to keep it in

his life because it's very important to my mom. Um but yeah I think she was so

strict about it, because she didn't— she wasn't raised with 00:09:00Catholicism so she

didn't understand that there was leeway. She thought everything had to be done

correctly. And some of the people she hung out with she has since told me were

the really strict Catholics that you hear on the news about like "Really, you're

upset about that?" She didn't realize until later that "Wait, this is my

faith if I choose to not see that as an insult to my faith that's okay." Um, so

it was really interesting. We were forced to go to church every Sunday, I say

forced because literally it was until you're 18 you will go to church. And then

it was until you have a religion you decide to practice you will go to church.

But yeah.

MYKLEGARD: How important was that to you in your life? Like how did you feel

about it?

OSHINSKI: As a kid, I really enjoyed it. We did wonderful things like there's so

many things for kids to do, and you make friends and you get to know the people

and you learn about like Jesus and history and stuff and it was really

interesting and I really enjoyed 00:10:00it. When I got older I was still active in some

of the girl's groups. There's this one called Challenge the other one called

Encarta. They were really wonderful and most of the girls were really nice and I

think its hilarious because they all came from strictly Catholic families, but we

were a little more laid back we were like "Ehh its okay. Its okay. Like if you

say the lord's name in vein we will not freak out." It was nice to be around

people that understood. To this day I don't consider myself a practicing

Catholic, but I still consider myself Catholic. I believe most of the things the

church teaches, my main thing is like love your neighbor you know hate the sin

not the sinner. That good stuff. My biggest problem is with the actual

institution of the church. Because we're humans, humans are corruptible, humans

make mistakes. Even if you're influenced by the divine you're bound to mess up at

some point you just need to be able to accept that. Unfortunately the church

cannot, which frustrates me to no end. Not that there aren't wonderful perishes

out there. So growing up 00:11:00it was, it was fantastic. Especially while in

Catholic school everyone was on the same page, everyone was really wonderful.

Going to public school was weird because there were people who didn't believe in

God. And I was like "You can not—what? How can you not believe in God? He's

like, he's God, he's right up there!" It blew my mind I was like this second

grader and I was just looking at these people like they were crazy like what has

just happened, which is probably why they thought I was so weird. I prayed

before lunch, you know, breakfast, dinner all the time. Actually got reprimanded

once. We weren't supposed to do the sign of the cross in school and I was like

"What? It's the sign of the cross." Yeah, but it just always made things

very— political things especially—very noticeable to me. My mom raised me as pro-life

she's always worried that she started me out too young cause I was like six

when she first explained to me what abortion was cause I asked her and she was

like "Uhhhhh okay." I was like "That's horrible!" I mean, but like since then

you know I've just kinda learned "Okay I disagree with it I can't force my

beliefs on other people," but there's like that I remember the big thing about

people not wanting to say the pledge 00:12:00of allegiance by saying under God, like one

nation under God, and I was always like why is it that big a deal? Like it was

founded in a Christian faith. That's why we're reciting it you don't have to

believe in God, but it always made things like that stand out a lot more. Which

is interesting here for my friends who never like thought about that who never

heard of that and I'm like "Oh yeah cause you didn't, you weren't raised in

religion that makes a lot of sense." But its just so weird you know to see "Oh I

was raised with this, they weren't, and yet we're both good people. Okay." I

don't know. I guess that was the biggest thing that I had to learn was that just

cause they don't believe in God or aren't Catholic doesn't make them bad. And

that was the hardest transition really.

MYKLEGARD: Have you found that like when you came to college you were sort of

searching for religious communities or like religious friends that you could

talk to?

OSHINSKI: Not so much. At 00:13:00this point in life I just kind of want someone who

will understand the philosophy of like be a good person treat other people

nicely. I found that in all of my friends, so I don't really need a religious

community because my thing is I don't care what your religion is. If you can

treat people well and be respectful, that's all that matters to me. You know? So

yeah, I thought my mom was really psyched she was like "Oh yeah there's a really

great Catholic church you know in Blacksburg you'll be so excited." And I was

just like "Not gonna go, but okay." Yeah I never found myself really

searching for it. If anything I found myself looking for nerds more than

anything else. That was like my, that's my religion: nerd. [laughs]

MYKLEGARD: [laughs] I understand that. So at what point did you become like best

friends with your mom?

OSHINSKI: I think I was about 16 or 17. We found out that I had a large cist on

my ovary, and I had to have surgery. It 00:14:00was very, very scary for me. All

I've ever wanted to be was a parent I wanted to be able to have a baby, raise a

kid, have a family, like that's somet