Surprises to a child, as a general rule, are supposed to be fun and awesome. Keep that in mind. My parents apparently had neglected to google this fact, and it has cost us children dearly.
While driving with my uncle and his wife, I began to daydream where they could possibly be taking me for my birthday. I gathered that I was a pretty special child to get such preferential treatment!
Now, quickly, lets reflect. Remember when I said that I was going to be an only child, theoretically speaking? That was because my uncle and his wife had two children, but one was only like 2 or 3 and the other was newborn. Said children were dropped off at respective care takers before we embarked one what I could only assume was going to be the BEST birthday ever! But then while driving, I began to ponder something...why, if this was to be a kiddie surprise, were we dropping off the other children? And then, something settled in the pit of my stomach that I refused to acknowledge the second that I realized it was the truth. My uncle, nor his wife, had spoken two words that I can recall and I realized then that my best birthday ever had come to an abrupt end some two hours previous. I was going home.
Now, I realize that that may sound like I didn't want to go home. That I didn't miss my family. These assumptions would be wrong. I missed my family greatly, and in fact had cried myself to sleep a few times during that month. But even a ten year old knows when they're going into a bad situation. I was one of them.
We drove for what seemed like years. Through the mountains we traveled in the middle of the night. There is nothing spookier than a full moonlit night in dark mountains. *shudders* I finally decided to ask where we were going. My uncle just replied with a mixture of anger and sadness, "home". I got a little excited 'cause he told me that we were meeting my mom somewhere in WV. The only really clear thing that i remember that night before getting to my mother was that I so wanted to ask my uncle what the phone call had been about. But I think a small part of me knew that it was much more than I could wrap my head around. Little did I know that I was going to be all but forced to wrap my head around it in the days, months, and years to come. Childhood innocence is tragically taken for granted until one realizes too late that it's been torn away and prematurely replaced with adulthood.
Around three in the morning we reached a McDonald's somewhere in the foot hills of WV. We pulled into the gas station that it was attached to and my uncle told me to rest, he wasn't sure how long until my mother would be arriving. Yeah, right! I didn't and eventually saw a familiar bronze colored Chevy S-10 pull into the gas station. My mother had arrived!
I could barely contain my excitement! I had all but forgotten my foreboding sense of dread that I had been fostering since the evening before. When she pulled up to us and got out of the car I couldn't get out of the car fast enough to run into her arms. She was and still is so beautiful to me and I never wanted to leave her again. Then just when my reunion didn't seem like it could get any better out of the car came flying a giant cotton ball! Butchy! My beloved terrier mix and his cute as all get out curly Q of a tail! He was by far the happiest person to see me! Sure, my mom missed me like any good mother would, but a loyal animal loves you like none other! I would turn to that dog more often than not pretty soon.
We said our goodbye's to my uncle and his wife and my mom, with inexplicable tears in her eyes thanked them over and over again. I didn't know why, I guess I assumed that she was just that happy to see me. She got back in the car, and drove home. We talked the whole 4 hr drive back. I tried to nap in her lap but I was keyed up and rarin' to go! So when we eventually did roll into our drive way at 7:30 in the morning on July 1st, 1993, I had forgotten the circumstances that had brought me back so early. My brother's and sister came tearing out of the house in the morning glow, all still in their pajama's, with their bed heads still evident. It was a joyous reunion. One that I have turned to in times of great frustration with one or the other since.
My father was up and kindly ordered my mother and I to go to bed since it had been a long night. So, we did. And we slept for 12 or 13 hrs. Something like that. All I remember is that when we got up, everyone had been put to bed and dad was either in bed too, or he had gone to work. I can't really recall if mom and I woke at the same time or if she woke me up. Any how, mom asked me if I was hungry, and of course, I was. So while our dinner cooked, we sat in the blanching glow of the over the counter fluorescent light. She began to play with my hair. I loved it when she did that. It was like a bonding exercise, it soothed me and now, looking back, I realize that was mom's master plan. She was gearing up to drop THE atomic bomb of all childhood's on my still groggy head
Wednesday, September 30, 2009
Monday, September 28, 2009
And so it begins...
Please, those of you with the bleeding hearts and equal rights brains, do not assume that this whole thing will be about dad hating and man bashing. It isn't. These are my true perceptions, my true recolections of events that occured in MY life. This is only the begining! There is more to come, more indifferences, whether actual or percieved on both parents parts as well as future acquaintances.
For as long as I can remember, I have always wanted to be a mermaid. Now, no laughing,I'm serious! It wasn't so much that I wanted to be a fish, but more that I wanted the romanticism of my first ever Disney movie. At the age of 8, I was already a hopeless romantic, and sadly I knew why.
Our family was a typical one in that there were parents and children. But I always felt something was missing from the make up of our family. I could never really grasp it, and honestly I'm not even sure that I could now. All i knew is that there always seemed to be varying levels of barriers between all of us. My sister and I were never really close, we're two years and 364 days apart. She was born a day before my third birthday. I am told that I was ecstatic for a short time, then apparently wanted my parents to take her back! I still chuckle thinking about my three year old self deciding one day that my parents are just going to have to give her back, I was over the new toy feel. In the years to come, I would constantly wonder as to why they decided not to.
My brothers, in my memory, have always been as thick as thieves. They, unlike my sister and I, are close in age, one being born in '89 the other in '90. So it would only seem natural that they be close. I kind of always envied that of them. I am the oldest, there for inexplicably regarded as the coolest. I know, I know, that sounds ridiculously conceited, but think about it. The oldest, regardless of the sex, is always, always, always followed and mimicked. And I was. Relentlessly!
But now, that I'm older, I am appreciating it so much. If I had known in my younger years that my brothers would be hero's and my sister would struggle constantly to find herself, I think that I would have been more tolerating of it all. But hindsight is 20/20, and the further I go along here, the more I'm sure I will realize this proves true.
The earliest memory that I can conjure up about my life is just before we moved from Portsmouth, Virginia to Ohio. It's really not an important life memory, I just remember my play room and that it was a total wreck! And I'm playing with my fake bakery set. You know the one I'm talking about, it had cupcakes with detachable icings in all three important flavors!? Oh yeah! Don't ask why that is the memory that is my first ever, I'm sure that there are earlier one's but they don't seem to be significant to me like the rubber cupcakes in the messy play room do!
But once we moved here to Ohio, boy, do the memories seem to be in abundance! I can remember my tire swing. They day my daddy put it up for us, and subsequently, the day I took it down! Wow, the pain of that tree root slamming into my back at 30 mph in a hard spin is still sharp! * shudders* I can remember ever single one of our neighborhood imagination fests! There were about twelve kids total in our little hamlet of New Reading. We had some great times together. My favorite childhood memory hands down, was the year we had the worst blizzard, snowstorm, what have you, since the 70's. All of the neighborhood kids got together and since the roads were closed, we built whole cities in the snowbanks on the sides of the roads! It was great! we built and played in them all day long! It was so cold that day but none of us cared! We were free! If you've ever watched the movie "Stand By Me" with Richard Dreyfus, Cory Feldman, River Phoenix, and Jerry O'Connell, and gotten that flash back to your childhood, you know what I'm talking about. But that day, that day was special. That day was the last time that i would feel that bliss of childhood so strongly. I never again had a day like that snow day.
That following summer, my uncle decided to ask me if I wanted to come spend the summer with him in Virginia. I hesitantly accepted. I had never been away from home that long let alone that far! I was 9 going on 10 that summer, and I felt something in me kinda pipe up that it wouldn't be a good idea to go. I felt for some reason that I should stay, that I was going to be needed. But the allure of being the only child, so to speak, for two and a half months was much louder. So I went. I had a blast! I made new friends, my uncles ex-wife took me to the bay for jet skiing, i got my name spelled out in the water...it was great! But unfortunately, my birthday came.
There I was celebrating my 10th birthday with this wonderfully large party my uncle, his wife, and their neighbors had set up when my uncle gets a phone call. That phone call irrevocably changed my life, and not for the better.
I could only hear my uncle's half of the conversation but that was enough to scare the shit out of me. At first it was just a concerned look on my uncle's face that caught my attention. Then it was him raising his voice demanding to know what HE did. I wasn't sure who HE was but it didn't sound like a good thing. Then he's trying to get the caller to calm down, and to do so he has to say their name to get their attention. The name he says is my mothers. My heart lurched. For some reason, and still to this day I have no idea why, the first thought to come to my 10 year old mind was that HE had hit my mother. I had surmised that HE was my father. Again, I have no logic behind that thought. My father had never once laid a hand on my mother. So why then was that what I automatically assumed? Strange how a child's mind works sometimes.
As the conversation wore on, I began to realize that I had had a sort of foresight, a premonition if you will, to this occurrence. When my uncle had asked me to come stay with him, I had that slight feeling of dread. Then I had the thought that I was going to be needed. Silly as it sounds, sitting there, I began to feel as if it was all my fault. Ridiculous, i know! But I did and i started to cry. By then my uncle was wrapping up the conversation and I knew instinctively that he was going to need to talk to me. But he didn't. He hung up the phone and talked with his wife for a short minute, and then he called me over. He wasn't revealing anything in his voice or on his face. He simply told me to go upstairs and pack all my stuff, that they had a surprise for me. I did as i was told but I had no idea that this surprise would be one of the best and worst surprises I would ever get.
For as long as I can remember, I have always wanted to be a mermaid. Now, no laughing,I'm serious! It wasn't so much that I wanted to be a fish, but more that I wanted the romanticism of my first ever Disney movie. At the age of 8, I was already a hopeless romantic, and sadly I knew why.
Our family was a typical one in that there were parents and children. But I always felt something was missing from the make up of our family. I could never really grasp it, and honestly I'm not even sure that I could now. All i knew is that there always seemed to be varying levels of barriers between all of us. My sister and I were never really close, we're two years and 364 days apart. She was born a day before my third birthday. I am told that I was ecstatic for a short time, then apparently wanted my parents to take her back! I still chuckle thinking about my three year old self deciding one day that my parents are just going to have to give her back, I was over the new toy feel. In the years to come, I would constantly wonder as to why they decided not to.
My brothers, in my memory, have always been as thick as thieves. They, unlike my sister and I, are close in age, one being born in '89 the other in '90. So it would only seem natural that they be close. I kind of always envied that of them. I am the oldest, there for inexplicably regarded as the coolest. I know, I know, that sounds ridiculously conceited, but think about it. The oldest, regardless of the sex, is always, always, always followed and mimicked. And I was. Relentlessly!
But now, that I'm older, I am appreciating it so much. If I had known in my younger years that my brothers would be hero's and my sister would struggle constantly to find herself, I think that I would have been more tolerating of it all. But hindsight is 20/20, and the further I go along here, the more I'm sure I will realize this proves true.
The earliest memory that I can conjure up about my life is just before we moved from Portsmouth, Virginia to Ohio. It's really not an important life memory, I just remember my play room and that it was a total wreck! And I'm playing with my fake bakery set. You know the one I'm talking about, it had cupcakes with detachable icings in all three important flavors!? Oh yeah! Don't ask why that is the memory that is my first ever, I'm sure that there are earlier one's but they don't seem to be significant to me like the rubber cupcakes in the messy play room do!
But once we moved here to Ohio, boy, do the memories seem to be in abundance! I can remember my tire swing. They day my daddy put it up for us, and subsequently, the day I took it down! Wow, the pain of that tree root slamming into my back at 30 mph in a hard spin is still sharp! * shudders* I can remember ever single one of our neighborhood imagination fests! There were about twelve kids total in our little hamlet of New Reading. We had some great times together. My favorite childhood memory hands down, was the year we had the worst blizzard, snowstorm, what have you, since the 70's. All of the neighborhood kids got together and since the roads were closed, we built whole cities in the snowbanks on the sides of the roads! It was great! we built and played in them all day long! It was so cold that day but none of us cared! We were free! If you've ever watched the movie "Stand By Me" with Richard Dreyfus, Cory Feldman, River Phoenix, and Jerry O'Connell, and gotten that flash back to your childhood, you know what I'm talking about. But that day, that day was special. That day was the last time that i would feel that bliss of childhood so strongly. I never again had a day like that snow day.
That following summer, my uncle decided to ask me if I wanted to come spend the summer with him in Virginia. I hesitantly accepted. I had never been away from home that long let alone that far! I was 9 going on 10 that summer, and I felt something in me kinda pipe up that it wouldn't be a good idea to go. I felt for some reason that I should stay, that I was going to be needed. But the allure of being the only child, so to speak, for two and a half months was much louder. So I went. I had a blast! I made new friends, my uncles ex-wife took me to the bay for jet skiing, i got my name spelled out in the water...it was great! But unfortunately, my birthday came.
There I was celebrating my 10th birthday with this wonderfully large party my uncle, his wife, and their neighbors had set up when my uncle gets a phone call. That phone call irrevocably changed my life, and not for the better.
I could only hear my uncle's half of the conversation but that was enough to scare the shit out of me. At first it was just a concerned look on my uncle's face that caught my attention. Then it was him raising his voice demanding to know what HE did. I wasn't sure who HE was but it didn't sound like a good thing. Then he's trying to get the caller to calm down, and to do so he has to say their name to get their attention. The name he says is my mothers. My heart lurched. For some reason, and still to this day I have no idea why, the first thought to come to my 10 year old mind was that HE had hit my mother. I had surmised that HE was my father. Again, I have no logic behind that thought. My father had never once laid a hand on my mother. So why then was that what I automatically assumed? Strange how a child's mind works sometimes.
As the conversation wore on, I began to realize that I had had a sort of foresight, a premonition if you will, to this occurrence. When my uncle had asked me to come stay with him, I had that slight feeling of dread. Then I had the thought that I was going to be needed. Silly as it sounds, sitting there, I began to feel as if it was all my fault. Ridiculous, i know! But I did and i started to cry. By then my uncle was wrapping up the conversation and I knew instinctively that he was going to need to talk to me. But he didn't. He hung up the phone and talked with his wife for a short minute, and then he called me over. He wasn't revealing anything in his voice or on his face. He simply told me to go upstairs and pack all my stuff, that they had a surprise for me. I did as i was told but I had no idea that this surprise would be one of the best and worst surprises I would ever get.
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