Since my blog is dominated by the "stuff" of now...i thought i'd take it back a little.
On November 2, 1982, my mother had been cleaning the house all day. After waxing the floors, she lay down for a nap. At 7:48 pm, I woke her up ready to see the world. Forty-five minutes later, I was born. There was no time for preparation or anesthesia. The doctor said that after about five more minutes, I would have been born in the elevator. I wonder if I was just sick of swimming around in that tiny world or if I had planned the surprise attack.
Unusual, they called me. I never took a pacifier nor did I wake up in the middle of the night like most babies. I sucked my knuckle, not my thumb and I would “reason” with my parents on the subjects of pregnancy, divorce and the validity of Santa Clause. I had a three and a half year old sister and an eight-year-old brother. Had I know this, I might not have been so eager to be born. My mother stayed at home to make sure we did not kill on another, and my father began building computers, electrical systems, and built his photography business from the ground up. I still wonder when they had time for themselves…to “make us.” My mother had her son and my father had his “daddy’s little girl,” and I was, well, “the mistake" as my sister had called me. In her own defense, my mother later explained that I was not a mistake, but merely a surprise. I however was not your average naïve child who would actually believe that there was a difference between the two.
I know now that I was frightening to my parents. They didn’t exactly know what to do with me. I would ride my bike to garage sales, buy toys and sell them at school. I stripped lawnmowers and bikes and turned a profit to buy yet something else I could sell. I had tons of ideas for things like restaurants and inventions and coming from a family that eats not much more than some variation of hamburger meat…my squirrel skinning days solidified my place as the “black sheep” of the family.
My childhood memories are littered with memories of being locked in the deep freezer, making a swimming pool with a tarp and a trailer, dragging home dead snakes after swimming in the creek, never actually wearing a pair of shoes, and booby-trapping the house with my brother to bully my sister (he began my Marine Corps training somewhere around age 4). I now realize that my mother never wanted to whip me, although she threatened on the hour and my father would come to my rescue when she did have a rampage with the switch tree. My dad would pretend to spank me and we would giggle in the back room as if my mother had no idea she was being undermined. I am so thankful for childhood that i did have, whether it be short lived or plagued with fighting, relocation and a domestic shelter. While some memories scream in my head, others make me thank God for the support system i did have. And at 27, i realize that while my parents were not perfect, neither was I.
