“That was the year, my twenty-sixth, when I was discovering that not all of the promises would be kept, that some things are in fact irrevocable and that it had counted after all, every evasion and every procrastination, every mistake, every word, all of it.”
BIOGRAPHY | CONNECTIONS | MUSINGS | PINTEREST | SPOTIFY
STATS
Name: Wren Charlotte Montgomery Faceclaim: Margaret Qualley Gender & Pronouns: Cis woman & she/her Sexuality: Bisexual Age: 26 Birthday: April 23, 1997 Zodiac: Taurus sun, Pisces moon, Capricorn rising Education: B.S. in Psychology, CU Boulder Occupation: Fiber Artist, Sales Associate at Frontier Foods Neighborhood: Downtown + compassionate, perceptive, steady - self-deprecating, stubborn, conflict-avoidant
BIOGRAPHY
In the ‘90s, Maggie Montgomery was the “it” girl at Providence Park High. As pretty as any of the girls on TV and surprisingly kind for a cheerleader, she had the whole world ahead of her. When she started running around with Donnie Roberts and his crowd of burnouts, her parents assumed it was a phase, just teenage rebellion. Still, her Mama prayed extra long every night and didn’t bother to hide her disdain for the boy.
It turns out, she was right to be worried. Maggie’s parents took the news that she was pregnant better than expected– only minimal screaming and crying and pleading with God to bring back their perfect baby girl. The decision to interrupt Maggie’s senior year and send her to live with her older sister in Oregon came a few days later. Maggie knew better than to argue– they’d been gracious enough not to disown her, like they had Maude a few years prior. They were gracious.
Wren and Walden Montgomery were born April 23, 1997 and knew nothing but abundant love from their mother and aunt. Maude had never wanted kids, but she was taken by her niece and nephew immediately. Their life was as perfect as it could be, Maggie and Maude teaching the twins everything they knew– piano, guitar, cooking, camping, sewing, art and poetry. They hardly even noticed that their father wasn’t around. After all, what could they need him for?
Everything changed when the twins were eleven. Wren woke up sick one day and stayed that way. After a week of home remedies with no improvement, the flu was ruled out. Wren’s fatigue was written off as childhood depression, chalked up to not having her dad around. The diagnosis stuck through a series of seemingly unrelated health events– dislocating her shoulder twice in eighth grade, dislocating a rib freshman year, continuing dizzy spells and days of fatigue so thick she couldn’t get out of bed.
When she was sixteen, Wren had a seizure during an all-school assembly. Walden (who was, by then, going solely by his middle name– Cole) told her later that it was on dress code, and that she’d saved them all a slut-shamey lecture about short skirts. She had a broken arm and two dislocated ribs from the fall, and it was a few days later that Wren got a diagnosis that changed her life forever. It’s called Hypermobile Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome, a connective tissue disorder; Symptoms include joint hypermobility and instability, chronic pain and fatigue, fainting spells and seizures.
The diagnosis felt like a curse for a long time, a confirmation that Wren was not only different, but doomed to a lifetime of managing pain. On top of a primary care physician, Wren needed an orthopedist and a neurologist to manage the symptoms. It was defeating, even the way they talked about it– no hope of a cure, only hope that they could make her days more comfortable. The bills stacked up and even with Maude’s help, Maggie couldn’t keep up. The four of them moved back to Providence Peak then, when the twins were sixteen.
Living with the grandparents was wildly different. Both Maggie and Maude were different then, more polished versions of themselves– and it was a lot. Grandma doted over Wren, taking her to every appointment and hovering even on the good days. Grandpa was convinced it was something he could pray away, and Cole… Cole sort of thrived everywhere, in his sardonic, smartest-guy-in-class kind of way. But the extra support was nice, and not having to stretch to make ends meet definitely made everybody a little easier to be around.
Physically, Wren didn’t change much– she still spent spurts in bed unable to move and dislocated ribs and passed out in class, but it got easier to live with. She had Cole around to help, and after a few months, she had Lee, too. He was the polar opposite of anybody Wren would’ve seen herself spending time with– where she was quietly funny and booksmart, he was the popular golden boy. Where she was still learning to live in her body, he was in full control of his, a star athlete.
Lee became Wren’s first love. He was equally excited to take her to concerts and to hole up and watch ‘80s movies for days on end. He quite literally caught Wren when she fell and her family loved him. Thanks to Lee’s encouragement and Cole’s tutoring, Wren graduated on time, despite all of the class she missed. And, thanks to Lee, the family was comfortable letting Wren move out of the house to attend CU Boulder. They trusted that, if the three of them were together, the boys would take care of Wren.
She wasn’t fully independent, even in college, but it was nice to expand her support system. Her potluck roommates turned out to be lifelong friends, friends who were there when Wren bought her first cane at nineteen and friends who took her on a weeklong trip to Oregon when she and Lee broke up sophomore year. It turned out Lee was just as stifled by the small town as Wren was. He was gay, and on top of that he was in love with Cole. After the shock wore off, it didn’t even really feel like a loss. Lee was still around all the time, still Wren’s best friend, only now she didn’t have to wonder if she was a bad kisser.
Wren declared a Psychology major at the end of sophomore year, and got an on-campus job in the writing center. It began to wear on her then– the uneven sidewalks and the always-broken-down elevator in the Psych wing and the strict attendance policy that didn’t take into account chronic pain. When a petition was passed around campus about adding a shuttle service for mobility-challenged students, Wren tracked down the source and got involved with the Disability Advocacy Student Coalition. DASC was a safe haven for her, and a godsend when she had to petition her professors for test make-ups or explain discrimination to her manager.
DASC opened her eyes to the beauty of her different body; She learned about Judith Heumann and James Lebrecht and met so many people experiencing the world in ways like she was. She learned to call herself disabled, and how to weave from another student with chronic pain. The small, repetitive movements did wonders to assuage pain in her fingers, and after a couple months of practice, Wren started making pieces good enough to sell.
College was so formative, in fact, that Wren decided she wanted to go to graduate school in Community Development. Wren and another girl from DASC both got accepted to a program in Chicago. It was a big move, and further away from her family than Wren had ever been, but she was determined to make it work. The first semester was harder than she thought, but Wren pushed, sure she would make it through the year. When she had a seizure on the way home from class a week before final exams, Mom insisted she come home. Wren was so rattled and exhausted that she did.
She’s taken smaller steps towards independence then, moving into an apartment with a roommate and now a studio by herself. If she had to live in Providence Peak, at least she had her own space. It wasn’t so bad, really– she missed school and her friends, but Wren was pretty good at seeing the silver lining. She finally had the time to make her fiber art again, and she’s amassed a decent enough following on Instagram and Etsy that it supplements the income she gets from Frontier. Wren isn’t sure that she’ll ever finish her Master’s, but she isn’t really sure about a lot at the moment.
