The Wrong Life

Sometimes in therapy I learn something about myself that seems so new, or I get a brilliant new perspective or I see something I hadn't seen clearly before. I guess that's why going to therapy remains worth it. (Besides that whole life ring while I'm drowning in depression thing, of course.) Moments like that bring into sharp focus how for quite a few years I learned nothing new in therapy.

In my mind, I sometimes try to "re-do" my past, think that I can somehow "fix" things. I know it isn't rational: I'm not going to be able to make my family be alive again or change any of a number of other past traumas. But emotionally I feel as if I can do so if only I do it right.

People define themselves differently. In many places in the world, people define themselves by their place within their community. The Navaho people define themselves by their family connections. LIke the Navaho, so did I. Without my family, I feel cut off, I feel like there are huge gaping holes inside me that nothing can fill.

This is not how my life should be. I wanted to marry and have children: I would have made a terrific wife and mother. I am nurturing and loving and giving. The fact that no one ever wanted to marry me has long made me feel there is something wrong with me. I see so many people who have lifelong relationships, people who don't seem to have the qualities I have, people who are takers or who are high-maintenance, and I have to wonder what is wrong with me that no one wanted what I have to give.

My brother was supposed to be my friend when we grew up. He was supposed to be here with me after our parents died. Our children would have been friends and we would have spent a lot of time together.

When I'm Stronger

NOTE: This is an extraordinarily long post and delves into more detail in ugly places than normal. Don't feel you have to read it.

My therapist and i talked about journaling at my last appointment, referring to my last blog post and the epiphanies that came to me while journaling early one morning. Michele suggested I continue to journal when I first wake up because your mind is still open then; it hasn't put up the usual barriers it does once you get up and start your day. That was Monday. (We had to meet out of order due to Xmas, and we'll meet on Tuesday next week due to New Year's.)

So I started on Tuesday, two days ago. In less than 2 pages, memories of Mom bubbled up in my mind. These memories promptly turned into ones that hurt and disturbed me, memories I have shunned and shunted away, memories I don't feel able to deal with. i want to be able to deal with all my memories of Mom during the few, short months leading to her death with acceptance and equanimity. The set of memories that came to me Tuesday morning hurt. They scared me the way the events I remembered scared me. My stomach is tight just remembering my reactions on Tuesday. I cried a little, but held myself back from full immersion into the emotions those memories contained. I was strong enough to hold myself back from that. I tell myself I'll deal with those memories when I'm stronger.

Today, after I'd been home for about an hour and a half (I spent Xmas with other friends), I took a nap. it was a wonderful nap: a gentle sinking into unconsciousness under a warm, fluffy cloud of a comforter with the sun shining through the window onto my face. Then lovely vague dreams, and waking up feeling soft, pliable, and happy.

Somehow, ideas relating to my past rose up inside my mind. I remembered a memory from when I had to be nine months old: I was lying in a cool, twilight-dim room and knew I shouldn't cry or make a fuss, just wait for someone to come get me out of bed. I know I was 9 months old because I knew who was my regular babysitter at the time (I checked with Mom). It was my Aunt Nita. She and her sons always seemed kind of tense and unhappy, for very good reason: Uncle Jack was a drunk. He wasn't just an alcoholic — he drank himself into a stupor, drank himself into the gutter, and, when brought home by my father and/or his other brothers and put to bed, would promptly climb out a window and go back to yet another bar. As an infant, I was completely aware that I shouldn't cry, shouldn't upset that household, should wait to be picked up from my nap.

That memory came to me as a corroboration of how I could remember that my cousin's molesting me started when I was two. How can a two-year-old remember anything? How can a nine-month-old? But traumatic events can set memories into stone.

Christmas Memories: Sadness and Joy

I always loved Christmas while growing up because it was a big deal to us as a family gathering, both immediate and extended. For the first 11 years of my life, we got together with my dad's family on Christmas Eve, even at immense inconvenience to other family members, to open presents after midnight when my grandfather arrived from closing up the movie theater he managed. After that, the younger siblings (my dad's generation) rose up in protest and we began having our gatherings at a more suitable day and time and took to drawing names instead of giving gifts to everyone, another hardship on the younger families. Even with all the craziness and sometimes 35-40 people in a small, three-bedroom house, I loved the holidays. And Christmas morning was always just about the four of us: Mom, Dad, my little brother Jim, and me.

However, the year I was 16, we moved 1100 miles away from the town, and everyone, I’d known my entire life. At least that Christmas, it was still the four of us. Unfortunately, Dad died of a heart attack the following May (or March, I'm not sure after 35 years) and Mom insisted we stay where we were. So the Christmas I was 17, there was just Mom, Jim, and me. Mom wanted to make it something to remember as being different, so that it wouldn’t be a memory of loss — any more than it already was — but a new memory. So the three of us talked about it and decided to have lobster tail for Christmas Eve dinner! Mom had never cooked lobster of any sort before, but she asked the man at the fish counter where she bought the lobster. Jim and I made the salad and melted the butter and set the breakfast bar for our feast. We even had little glasses of wine with Mom's regular-sized glass. And it was a very fine meal! It was a nice way to start a new memory.

In addition, my brother and I were panic-stricken that there was no one to fill Mom’s stocking or give her gifts from Santa that year, so we did it. We bought small gifts for her stocking, and we went in together on a single gift for her from Santa. On Christmas morning, Mom quickly figured out who the 'elves' were who had surprised her by filling her stocking, but the look on her face when she found a package to her from 'Santa' was one of shock. I think she believed in Santa for a moment, or that an angel had reached down and given her a gift. Then she saw the smug looks on our faces and realized that her 'angels' were the two teenagers who were her anchor in this world.

By then, our extended families no longer extended. Our family was just the three of us.

Why I Don't Return There

Long drives lead me to long thoughts. Sometimes, they even lead to epiphanies. My recent drive down to Oregon lead me to a surprising one.

I have never been to a class reunion with the class I graduated with. In fact, since my mom moved away from there in '91, I have been back exactly once, for the wedding of my step-niece. I spent my last two years of high school and three summers between college sessions in that town, but have had no contact with my old friends since college, except for a very brief moment in the "greeting" line at my little brother's funeral.

I even looked them all up in Facebook a little while back. I think I mentioned that in a post not long after. Part of me felt an instant compulsion to get in touch with them all, to reignite old friendships if possible. And immediately upon the heels of that came a feeling of revulsion and anxiety so severe it was almost a panic attack and it gave me a pain deep in my abdomen. So I didn't do it.

Still, on occasion, the compulsion comes back. Put up a FB page in your old name, it says. Get in touch. But I ignore it.

The idea wandered again into my mind during my drive down to Oregon and I opened my mind to it so I could explore it. I don't remember why or how I lost contact with the last of my high school friends. I do remember a feeling of anger. After I broke up with my boyfriend, he was all nice to me about it, but managed to turn people against me behind my back. (And I'm sure he never told any of them about how he would call me — collect — from the base after he went into the service, crying about how much he hated it.) I was left with a couple of girlfriends with whom I spent my summers when we all returned home between college sessions. But for some reason, that ended and I don't know why. I don't remember.

So why do I always say no when an old high school (and post-college) friend gets in touch (via a mutual friend) to ask if I want to be found by the reunion search committee? Why the revulsion and the anxiety? I wanted to know.

It boils down to the fact that I hate that place. I hated that we moved there, away from the place and people I'd known all my life. I hated the pitiful excuse for a high school. My cat was shot a few months after we moved there, and I'm sure I know which of the neighborhood boys did it. My dad died of a heart attack in our backyard. My little brother is buried in a cemetery less than a mile from our old house. Even when we first moved there, I hated the house: I could barely stand being alone in it, even in the daytime. It felt bad in that house. I was gloriously happy when my mom and her husband moved away from that house and that town.

Therapy Hangover

Sometimes, when going through therapy, a person can experience what some call a "therapy hangover." This feeling can occur from extreme emotions experienced during therapy, from reaching a deep place during therapy, and from intense realizations or epiphanies reached during therapy. Usually this feeling doesn't come during or right after the therapy session, but a little while later.

I think that today I experienced a therapy hangover.

Today's therapy was good. I was feeling disappointed with myself for not achieving the goals I set at last week's session. I've been feeling disappointed in myself for not putting more time toward my freelance job and being behind in reaching my deadline. Those were the feelings we started off the session discussing. Fairly simple and normal stuff.

I tend to approach my sessions in a freestyle, stream-of-conscious style. I lose track of original points as some new thought or memory comes to mind and I chase after that. I've told my previous therapist and my current therapist about this tendency and given them permission to control the session more, but both of them have basically let me follow my paths and tangents.

Today, in particular, I think this tactic was useful. I went from being disappointed in my not reaching my goal for the week to disappointment in myself regarding work to having developed the feeling over years that I'm going to disappoint my employer eventually, so I might as well get it over with right away. (I tend to feel this with friends, too, but forgot to bring this up during therapy.) So I tend to do something that will disappoint: I take a sick day early in my employment, I change plans suddenly (such as not coming in on a day I was scheduled to be in the office, saying I'll work at home instead), and I don't always work as hard as I feel I should and can. I'm not just in the process of disappointing others — I'm disappointing myself.

Ideas and memories and feelings kept coming to mind as I spoke, such as my parents' insistence on straight A's, even though they couldn't do the work I was doing in school and they had no understanding for how hard math was for me, for example. I told my therapist that I'd tried not to internalize that mindset, but that I had anyway. Perfection is hard to live up to.

Memories of Mom: Happy Birthday, Mom!

To see the reason for my writing this "Memories of Mom" series, see the first post in the series.

Well, I don't have any one story to tell today; I've told you all the best that I can remember right now. Instead, I'll just sum up the day, provide a few vignettes, and maybe tell you just a little bit more about Mom.

I had therapy today. I took with me pictures of my mom and we talked about Mom and how I was feeling. I'm feeling kind of neutral, but I think that's a touch deceptive. I think there is more there than I am currently feeling. There's sadness underneath, which is to be expected. And I'm feeling a bit irritable and easily annoyed. But it was a good therapy session.

I have little pictures in my mind of my mom. When I was little and she was trying to play whiffle-ball with my little brother, me, and Dad. Unfortunately for my mom, there wasn't a sport she played where she didn't end up bending a finger back further than it was supposed to go. Frisbee, volleyball, even whiffle-ball with a couple of little kids.

When wigs were popular in the 70s, Mom had one that was in a tight perm and was kind of silvery blonde. We all called her "Fifi" when she wore it because she looked like a poodle, only she didn't realize it. Then she saw the pictures from the Halloween when my little brother wanted to be dressed up "like a hooker" and he and I used Mom's wig, among other things of hers. She never wore that wig again. Or the mini-dress that my brother wore with it.

Then she wore her blonde hair in a cut that, with her golden wire-framed glasses, made her look like John Denver. 

Memories of Mom: A Mother-Daughter Bonding Experience (Rerun)

To see the reason for my writing this "Memories of Mom" series, see the first post in the series.

(Originally posted Tuesday, October 28, 2008 and was rerun on March 29, 2011 by request. It seemed appropriate for this series)

WARNING: This post contains adult content and references to genitalia, sex toys, and batteries. Read at your own discretion. If you are under 18, just lie and tell your folks that you didn't read it.

Don't blame me: there was a request for it!

My mom was helping me pack today, and we were discovering that there was a lot more to do than I had thought there was. And we had less time to do it in. So there was some back-and-forth comments, as is usual, some mild bickering.

Then came a knock on the door. It wasn’t until I was almost to the door that I realized what it had to be: my delivery from Babeland.com. Early. Usually UPS doesn’t deliver in my area until late afternoon or early evening (it’s a long story and an even longer way from anything resembling an airport). So when I made my order, I figured it would arrive after my mom was gone.

Nope.

The rectangular package was only as long as the distance from my elbow to the end of my fingers. Mom came out of the bedroom, where she had been sorting and packing my clothing, and asked “What is it?”

Memories of Mom: Painted

To see the reason for my writing this "Memories of Mom" series, see the first post in the series.

When I bought my house in Oregon, it was a bank repossession and it was in bad condition. The floors had been trashed. The wrong materials had been used in the bathroom tub surround and the wood joists around it had all rotted; the bathroom had to be gutted. The fireplace was not in good enough shape to be a working wood-burning fireplace. Most of the little wall-insert heaters were situated behind doors and were also from the years that had been recalled due to fire danger. Because the house was being bought with a remodeling loan on top of the mortgage, the bank insisted that the tiny, aluminum, 1960s windows in the bedrooms be replaced with windows that allowed egress according to current building codes. A lot of work had to be done before I could even live in it in the barest form, much less in comfort. 

But work went along and the bathroom became a thing of beauty (but that's for another story). I worked as the general contractor for the work, with a contractor friend working as the main contractor. Lots of extra things came along, as things do, and it wasn't until December that I was up to putting in new flooring and painting the walls and ceilings.

This is when my mom surprised me. Never before had she shown any interest in doing this sort of work. She paid to have someone repaint the walls in her own home. But she wanted to help me paint my house. So I let her.

I had painted before; I'd completely scraped and repainted the exterior of my previous house. I had done a lot of research before that to make sure I knew what I was doing. My mom had never so much as held a paintbrush. I just made sure to cover anything that needed covering. The floor was still old linoleum that would soon be covered with floating plank flooring (Mom paid for someone to lay the floor in the living room and kitchen for me, so they would be done at least), so it didn't need covering thank goodness. The amount of paint that ended up on that floor was tremendous and I have to say that only some of it was my fault.

Memories of Mom: Turning 21

To see the reason for my writing this "Memories of Mom" series, see the first post in the series.

Mom was 21 when I was born, so she was only 42 when I turned 21. Because it was a big-deal birthday for me, she drove over the snow-covered mountain pass (after driving over the snow-covered eastern side of the state) to take me out for my birthday, which fell on a Thursday. My friends were all taking me out on Friday, then my aunts and uncles who lived in the area, and my mom and I, were celebrating my birthday on Saturday.

I had moved out of the dorms to live in an apartment in the winter of my junior year of college. (Big mistake, but what the hell.) I was living in a tiny, tiny studio apartment — basically a bathroom, a kitchen, and a bedroom — that was not exactly the dream of every mother for their child's first, or any, home. When my mom went to use the restroom, she almost fell over because the floor was tilted at that spot. There was a bathtub, no shower. The pipes underneath the bathroom sink were rusted. But it was as clean as I could make it. And I was only 21.

So Mom met me at my apartment after I got home from classes. She got to meet the apartment, most of which she kept her mouth closed about (my aunt had been coaching her on how to react to your child's first home, which was bound to have something horribly wrong with it and at least I kept it clean). She couldn't help but shriek about the tilted floor though. And she wasn't thrilled by the "doorbell", which was a string that hooked to a bell on the inside window molding, went out through a hole in the window frame, then down to a loop at about head height outside. Basically, it wasn't a place I'd want my own kid, if I had one, to live. But it was my first place and I was very proud of it. (And I moved back into the dorms the following year; living alone was lonely!)

Since there wasn't anything to do around my apartment, no TV or radio even, and it wasn't the most comfortable place in the world, we went to dinner early. And my mom proceeded to get me drunk.

Memories of Mom: In the Middle

To see the reason for my writing this "Memories of Mom" series, see the first post in the series.

When I was living in Oregon, my mom sometimes had the unenviable position of being stuck between my grandma and me. Gram and I loved each other very much, but she had a very narrow viewpoint of life, was critical of everything that didn't fit within it, and when she was angry with me for transgressing these things, she would let my mom know about it. She also let me know about it, but she expected my mom to actually do something about it. This put pressure on my mom and when I occasionally complained to her about Gram, she let me know how difficult she found her position in the middle. So I endeavored to not put her there anymore.

Sometimes all three of us would go into the valley to Salem together to shop and have lunch. We didn't often get to go together because I worked and my Gram often got too tired, so it was always a treat when we managed it. Mom always insisted that Gram and I choose where to eat, hoping to avoid problems there, and Gram and I took turns choosing, to be fair.

One time we went to Salem and before lunchtime came, we had to decide where to eat. Now, Gram was becoming extremely picky by that time and didn't always like to eat just any place. So I offered to let her choose, but she insisted that it was my turn to choose, so I chose The Fish House. They had things other than fish, so Gram could have her choice, but they did specialize in seafood. Gram said that was fine.

Until we got to the restaurant. Then she complained that she didn't want fish, that she'd had fish recently and she didn't like to eat fish that often. Even as we sat down with our menus, both Mom and I told her that we could eat elsewhere.

Memories of Mom: The Wine Fairy

My mom was a very welcoming person, especially as she got a little older and more comfortable with herself. My friends always fell in love with her and enjoyed spending time with her.

One time, when I was in my mid- to late-20s, I took my two best girlfriends with me to visit my mom and her husband for the weekend. It was about a five-hour drive, so I didn't take people over often, and this was my girlfriends' first visit.

It was summer and quite hot out (Mom lived in Eastern Washington then, which is a high-altitude desert), so on Saturday we girls got into our shorts and lay on the back lawn to catch some sun. We hadn't been out there that long when it began to rain. Rainstorms in the summer in that area mean thunder and lightning, and with most things being brown and dry in the summer, lightning means fires. It wasn't long before the police scanner began squawking out news of various wildfires. We could see the smoke from many of them as some of them headed north toward our neighborhood. It was turning out to be a more exciting day than I had planned for my friends.

So, changed into more suitable clothing for the sudden drop in temperature, we stood in the living room watching the storm move down the Columbia River Gorge, watching the wildfires, and listening to the police scanner.

My mom and her husband liked wine. I liked wine. My girlfriends liked wine. So Mom poured all of us glasses and we sipped while we watched Mother Nature's entertainment for the afternoon. 

The thing about the wine was that our glasses were never empty. My glass got close to empty a time or two, but then I'd pick it up and it would be full again. Same thing happened with my girlfriends. We never actually saw my mom filling our or each others' glasses, but we sometimes heard them being filled. The next thing we knew, we had full glasses again. This led to a series of photos that in turn led to a series of threats about if they ever saw the light of day. (I need to find those ....)

Thus began the legend of The Wine Fairy, who would magically keep your wine glass full, even in the face of thunderstorms and wildfires. Ever after that weekend, my girlfriends would ask about The Wine Fairy, not "how's your mom?" 

The Wine Fairy abilities are apparently not heritable, because while I can keep your wine glass full, you'll always see me doing so. 

Memories of Mom: Gin!

To see the reason for my writing this "Memories of Mom" series, see the first post in the series.

My mom did not sew or knit or or even cook very well when I was a kid, so I didn't learn any of those traditionally female activities (although I really wish I'd learned to sew). She did teach me how to clean house and do the laundry, both of which I was grateful for when I got older, but they just weren't mother-daughter bonding activities.

Until I hit eight or nine, we really didn't do much in a parent-child sort of way other than the usual go on vacation, go shopping (which neither of us enjoyed), go to Disneyland as a family, etc. But nothing just us.

Then she decided I was old enough to learn to play cards. Perhaps my father had grown tired of being beaten by her because I didn't see her playing with him. Her game of choice was gin rummy.

When she was teaching me, she took her time and showed me which cards to play and why and how to play competitively. Then, once I had the basics down, her killer instincts kicked in and it was no longer Ms. Nice Mom. If I hadn't already learned not to cry when I lost a game, I'd have learned it quickly then.

She beat me — at cards — six ways from Sunday on a regular basis. No playing nice or letting me win. I had to learn and catch up on my own. And I did. Oh, I didn't achieve her ability to completely annihilate the other player: I don't think I have that killer instinct. But I started winning more often. Not as often as she did, but more than before. And I could see my progress, so I figured eventually I might get as good as her.

There was nothing she loved so much as slamming down her last card and shouting "Gin!" at the top of her lungs. Then she cackled her evil laugh. For such a sweet-looking, mild-mannered lady, she could be as evil as they come.

Memories of Mom: It Wasn't Very Funny at the Time

This is the second installment in the "good memories of Mom" project recommended by Judy, Judy, Judy to offset the unhappy memories that have been cycling through my memory lately. Mom's birthday is next Monday, which is probably why these thought-vultures have been circling. This series of good memories is the antidote. I've only just started, but it seems to be working.

From the time I was five until I was 12, my family and my aunt and uncle's family went car camping at a manmade lake in Northern California, on the border with Nevada, somewhat south of Lake Tahoe. We shared a boat and the vacation essentially consisted of parking our truck and camper and their camper-trailer in connecting campsites and spending our days on the other side of the lake, boating and water-skiing and generally goofing around. 

When I was younger, it was great fun, but as I grew older, it grew a bit tiresome on occasion. I was the only girl among a brother and a couple of cousins and, on our last 2 trips a half-brother as well. And I just did not relate to my mom or my aunt, but I usually was left in their company because ours was a very gender-stratified family. And the guys got to spend more time with the boat and do more fun things, to my way of thinking.

At the time of this story, I was 11 or 12. It was a windy day and we'd spent quite a bit of time and effort weighting down the ties for the tarp so the adults could sit in the shade. (They simply slathered us kids with sunscreen and hoped for the best.) My aunt had her small dog with her, a chihuahua-mix of some sort, and it was quite nervous about the flapping of the tarp when the wind gusted through.

A little after lunch, the guys took the boat out. The were going to ski around to other parts of the lake and generally goof off with the boat for awhile. But usually they were back within an hour or so. Not so this day.

Memories of Mom: the War of Water

My friend Judy,Judy,Judy gave me a lovely idea in her comment on my most recent post: to post good memories of my mom every day for awhile — until her birthday I think would be best — to offset the negative ones I've been remembering from just before she died. So here's today's good memory of Mom.

Mom was always the "grown-up" in the family, because my dad could be such a kid. It was always Mom who said "look out" and "be careful" and "are you sure you should ...". So when she let her inner child out to play, it was always a surprise and so much fun.

I grew up in So. Cal. We had a swimming pool from the time I was ten. We lived in a tract ranch-style house with sliding glass doors that led out to the backyard and the pool. One day while Mom had just finished washing the dishes in the sink (pre-dishwasher time), my dad said something to her. I don't know what it was, but she grabbed the sprayer next to the kitchen faucet, turned on the water, and let my dad have it! He was drenched.

Undeterred, Dad headed for the backyard and the faucet back there. Mom, meanwhile, filled a plastic cup with water and sent one of us kids out to throw it on my dad: my brother and I were entirely flexible about whose side we were on at any given time during a water fight. 

Mom and Dad proceeded to drench each other, us two kids, and parts of the house before deciding that the amount of water on the floor indoors and the cement outdoors was becoming hazardous. Then we all bent to the task of cleaning up.

There was no clear winner in the War of Water, but it has always filled me with wonder and laughter that my mom, the grown-up of the family, started the water fight, especially from the kitchen. She may have been the grown-up, but she had a tremendously mischievous inner child!

The Story of My Life - Part 2

As I explained in Part 1, my therapist told me that there is another way to look at my life, rather than the powerless, victimized, trauma-ridden way. She talked about it as telling stories about our lives and how we can choose to emphasize different things. I've learned to emphasize the sad and fearful things, but my life has had so much more than that to it.

So here's another way to look at the story of my life. Beware: this is even longer than Part 1. If you want, you can scroll to the end and just read the conclusions.

It's true that I was molested, became afraid of the dark, and was bullied for many years. But I didn't live with my cousin (or my grandfather) and wasn't around either too often for the most part. And I didn't live near my school peers who bullied me. So I had the room to build a stronger self than it first seemed.

Although victimized early, and having parents who were kind of clueless about how to raise me and what was going on in my life, I did some powerful things. There was the time I taught myself to ride a two-wheel bicycle in a day so that my parents would buy me one. Because we didn't live near my school friends and there was seldom anyone for me to play with, I learned to keep myself entertained  --- I was bad at most sports so the boys in the neighborhood didn't usually want to play with me if they were playing football or baseball, and none of the girls were my age. I enjoyed skating around the cul de sac for long periods, I loved to read and write and draw, and I liked pretending to be a detective or something else that required me to sneak around the neighborhood. I didn't retaliate against my bullies, nor did I become cynical and bitter. When things got better for me in 10th grade, I simply enjoyed my good fortune and made more friends.

Then I survived a move away from everything and everyone I'd ever known. I survived the death of my father from a heart attack. And I survived going away to college and even thrived there. I was wary enough and strong enough to take myself out of an uncomfortable situation and move out of my aunt and uncle's house and into on-campus housing. And I did begin the steps toward adulthood, something I didn't realize until I casually brought up the following story to my therapist. 

The Story of My Life - Part 1

There is a type of therapy called Narrative Therapy where you rewrite portions or all of your life highlighting different aspects than the ones you currently highlight. For example, these days I describe my life mainly by highlighting all the things that have happened to me where I was powerless and bad things happened. Wonder why I'm depressed and anxious?

But talking with my therapist this week, we discovered that I have other aspects that I could use to describe my life. For example, remember when I talked about not being self-differentiated from my mother, aka still having the uncut umbilical cord between us? Well, in another conversation, we discovered other stories where I had differentiated and done things that carry you on into independent adulthood.

By talking about how differently I can describe aspects of my life by what I choose to highlight, we got on the subject of how I could write a different version of my life and remind myself of all the good and powerful aspects I've shown in my past. It hasn't all been bad choices and powerless tragedies. So I'm going to do that. But first, here is the way I currently tell the story of my life, to myself and to others (well, some of it I only tell to others I am close enough to trust).

Well, There's Yer Problem!

I've written about some challenging times in my childhood lately and they've not been entirely uplifting, especially the one previous to this. And I was intending to try to show some humor in that one. Be like The Bloggess, you know? Tell about some horrible life story with humor? I don't want to be a downer; I want to be funny! I want to attract you, my readers, and start conversations and connections.

But it's not working yet. Maybe because I'm not in a good enough place yet (even tho' The Bloggess writes while from the depths of her depressions and anxiety episodes). As you can see, I admire her greatly. I want to be able to talk about my life in a way that attracts and entertains readers rather than depresses them.

I have a lot of those sorts of stories, but by now I should be able to view them differently. My therapist said that you cannot get away from a wound until it's healed, and many of these wounds should have been at least addressed and soothed by my parents. I know they did the best they could. I just wish that in some ways it had been better. 

Usually with the practice (i.e., first) kid, you make your mistakes and you do things differently with the second. Well, with me, they treated me a lot like a little adult in some weird ways — expecting adult abilities and reactions and reasoning — and then treated my brother like an age-appropriate kid. I couldn't ask my mom about it when she was alive because she would do something that I found entirely out of character for her: she'd go into high-drama mode about what a horrible mother she had been for not doing XYZ and I'd have to leave off my issue and comforter her and tell her she was a great mom. Not. Useful. But effective in derailing me. I'm guessing she didn't like to say "I have no clue why."

I'll write some amusing stories later that will show the good side of my parents, I promise. And I'll try to find ways to write about my successes that don't emphasize how much I might have had to do them in the face of parental hurtfulness or simple negligence.

So stay with me. I will achieve humor if it's the last thing I do. But I'd rather it not be the last thing because then it would be kind of uselessly ironic.

My Attempt to Gain My Parents' Attention

It wasn't that my parents ignored me. They were simply on autopilot a lot of the time and just did what was easy. And as my brother was a boy and good at sports, it was easy for our lives to revolve around first his Little League baseball practices and games and then his Pop Warner football practices and games. Both came with lots of other people who socialized (especially the football people — they loved to party). So when I realized that most of the family attention and time was going toward my little brother (Including mine — I was in charge of walking him to and from his practices and being at games even if my parents had to be late), I decided to go out for a sport too. Obviously it was the sports that made the family sit up and pay attention.

At the time I was singing in Honor Choir. I should have stayed. Sure, no one came to watch my rehearsals, but they would have come to the performance and stayed.

When I Was Alone

I was the only girl my age in the cul de sac where I grew up, which meant that I only had people to play with when the boys needed an extra number or they were feeling generous (or when a girlfriend from school asked me to come over for the afternoon). After all, I couldn't catch or throw a baseball to save my life (although my football spiral was a thing of beauty) and my basketball skills were unreliable. I had reasonably thick glasses from the time I was nine, which probably had something to do with it.

But I was the only kid who wanted to play the part of Spock when we played Star Trek with someone's LEGOs and sometimes they needed an extra number for a sports game (my little brother was a thousand times better than I was by the time he was seven, so he took my place completely when I was 11, which was also when the boys determined I was truly a girl. After all, I was now wearing a training bra.

So I played alone a lot, even before I got a bra.

The thing was, I was only seldom sad about it. I'm alone most of the time now, too, but I'm sad about it most of the time. What was different and how do I get back to not minding being alone?

When I Did It Myself

When I was five, I wanted a two-wheeler bike. It was time to be done with my big tricycle and be a big kid. 

But first there is something you need to know about my parents: they weren't the kind of parents who thought through any aspect of their parenting. Mom was only 21 when I was born and Dad was 27. They liked to do what they wanted to do, and they did love my brother and me and enjoyed doing things with us, but they tended to parent on the convenience plan: if they felt like putting out the effort they did. If it seemed inconvenient, they found a reason not to do it.

So when I wanted a two-wheeler bike, they apparently weren't in the mood to be bothered with it at the time. They were both working, which afforded us luxuries that other kids with a cop or a secretary as a parent didn't, so it wasn't the cost. They just didn't apparently feel like it right then. So instead of the usual thing, where you buy your kid their first two-wheeler and teach them to ride it, they told me they'd buy me one when I was able to ride one. 

Hell, I was five. What they never understood was that I was an extremely bright kid, more than they realized, and logical, too. I wanted my bike, so I was going to learn to ride one.