If My Life Were A Book Part 2

Innocence

Introduction

The first memory I have consists solely of an old lady in a Mickey Mouse hat. Associated with that memory is a significant amount of fear. I was three months old when my parents took me to DisneyWorld before leaving Florida. The set of memories I have after that are muddled together remnants of Utopian summer days and snowball battles between my best friend and myself versus my best friend’s older brother, who happened to be my older brother’s best friend, and my older brother. It was a time when only the four of us existed in the world and all was as we made it to be.

Closing

Innocence is such a cherished trait in children and such a laughable trait in adults. It is sad to me how the tables turn along with the hour glass. While a superfluous naivety was held to in my particular case, the tables kind of got smashed instead of turned.

Innocence Lost

Introduction

Moments make are what create a lifetime and within those moments are those of higher influence than the rest. Certain moments can change our entire futures, change who we are, alter that which is best in us and twist it into something ugly. There was one day when I was probably four or five when I laid down for a nap with someone and woke up very much changed, unsure as to why and with the last hour or two missing from my mind. I awoke that day in a shroud of filmy residue stretched across my mind’s eye, like oil upon water it distorted the views from within and without.

Closing

I’m not sure what else about my life I don’t remember and to be honest I’m not sure if I want to know. Those things that lay hidden within us seem more fearful to me than those things that lay hidden outside. But then again, perhaps that is merely because I do not know what other monster I keep chained in my depths. But there are often times when I cannot help but ask myself, “why I am I like this?”

Snow Cream and Fireflies

Introduction

As a military brat my family moved a fair amount as we siblings continued our early years under the same roof. Ohio holds many fond memories for me, mostly involving bowls vanilla flavored snow and nights filled with the elusive and fancy free fireflies I made nightlight habitats for. Acrobatics on the swing sets were always fun, as was playing hide and go seek in grass taller than I was, but no memories of those three years were more precious than that of snow cream and fireflies but for that package I received between the two seasons.

Closing

I remember very clearly when my mom and dad sat us kids down at the kitchen table our last summer. My dad had brochures out on the table of what I’m sure was some California related something-or-other. I remember asking if I’d have friends there and my father very confidently replied that I’d have lots of friends there. It was the first thing I decided my father had lied to me about.

Wandering in Wetlands

Introduction

A good many summer weeks were spent in Washington visiting family. Wet summer days spent in doors, sunny summer days spent trying to follow my brother and cousin into the swamp, and fabulously utopian days spent learning to swim and enjoy the company of my family out on the lake. Somehow, everyone always seemed happy during those visits. My parents didn’t argue when we were in that oddly wet home away from home.

Closing

There was something magical about Washington when I was a child. Maybe it was the swamplands, maybe it was the forests, I don’t really know, but it was a place I always longed to return to… for… something… and somehow I lost whatever it was as I grew older.

A Crowded Hermitage

Introduction

Sunny Southern California is not the same place for children it is for adults. Having been “popular” in school while in Ohio, it was odd to come into an environment where I was despised. It was even odder to me that as I excelled scholastically and in our “gym” class that my school mates developed and even deeper dislike of me. I had never felt so alone in my life. Especially when forced to share time and space with so many creatures who, though they looked human, behaved like nothing I’d ever encountered before. I felt utterly alone those eight hours I was forced to sit still in a room that was too hot to have people in it.

Closing

Elementary school only had two real highlights: when the two “popular” new boys both ended up “falling” for me when I was the only female who wasn’t drooling over them in fourth and fifth grade, and then in sixth grade, one of the many days I came home crying, when my father sat across from me in my bedroom and very calmly informed me that I was now free to defend myself at school and he would deal with the principal from there on. I went to school the next day and announced at recess, when the usual gang up occurred, that I wasn’t going to let them mess with me anymore and it didn’t matter if I got in trouble; from that day on I was fighting back.

Unexpected Company

Introduction

Junior high was an interesting two years for me. Being stuck with the same kids I went to elementary school with as well as an influx of more people I didn’t particularly care for was an interesting mix of social experimentation and chosen isolation. It was during this time my artistic skills as a sketch artist truly started to come to fruition. One day while in science class, I noticed one of the many girls’ whose existences I had not registered yet to be sketching at her table. As the bell for class had not rung yet I stood a little ways back from her, watching as she meticulously forged with her pencil the armor of Xena: Warrior Princess upon her sketch pad. When I felt a lull in concentration as the links were completed, I remember approaching this girl with brashness often brought about by insatiable curiosity. She was the first of a close network of female friends I began developing and did not understand my connection to.

Closing

Sleepovers were few and far between and I was very much the guardian like older sister to the girls of my inner circle. I was the oldest, after all. And until our lives began getting complicated by the slow trickling in of male individuals into our secluded lunch sanctum, we remained close as a group and to one another on an individual basis.

High, Dry, and Fizzy

Introduction

My fellow female sketch artist and I held a closer relationship than I had with anyone in my family. I even spent an entire four days with her over at her family’s house during one summer. We didn’t sleep but a few hours those three nights. You see, we would stay up watching anime, reading manga, drawing throughout every activity no matter what it was except maybe video games which required our hands’ attention and were inevitably enthralled by the mystical properties of sparkling cider and cream soda. We didn’t drink alcohol, but we didn’t need to, for some reason sparkling apple cider and cream soda made us crazy and unmistakably drunk but for the absence of alcohol. Good times…

Closing

Her mental break down and multiple suicide attempts proved quite a toll on me, but I was determined to be a good friend, I was determined to be loyal to her, she may have been my darker side but she was a part of me nonetheless. That very devotion and care was tearing her apart. One day, she finally let me back into her mind for just a few moments, just long enough to tell me that she knew what she was going through was hurting me and so she never wanted to see or talk to me again. Even after a decade without any news of or from her, I still miss her friendship, I hope she is happy, and on occasion I even debate sending her a letter. Then I remember her wishes and how selfish I may very well be acting, and I write the letter, seal it in an envelope and add it to the rest of the unsent letters I keep hidden away.

Boots or Beaus

Introduction

High school hit and it felt fairly similar to junior high but for the fact that there was a greater age variation within the classes. It was an interesting transition for me because for the first time in my life it became obvious to me that I was no longer considered “one of the guys” as had been my usual social status when there was any status to be had. I remember being quite confused when a senior asked me, a lowly freshman, to go to a party he was having and I quite flatly told him no. It wasn’t the invitation that truly baffled me, though I was taken rather off guard by it, it was that within an hour the whole school knew about it and I was somehow a stupid and silly girl for refusing to go to a party I knew I would not enjoy. Enter dating politics.

Closing

When I started learning the game I enjoyed dating. My first boyfriend was a musician I played with in band, a fellow artist and poet as well. It slowly became apparent, especially after Id been through two “boyfriends” that I was an unusual occurrence for the guys who had access to my company. All but one found my competitive nature thrilling. I was the girlfriend they could go play soccer with, or steal the bacon, or whatever have you. But my third boyfriend unveiled a gentler spirit in me, and for whatever reason I held onto him. Perhaps I was afraid that if I lost him I would lose that part of myself. He is, in truth, probably the reason I have any mastery of my minute feminine wiles, but in hanging on to him I outwardly let go of aspects of myself that were integral to who I was. But, as with any buried secret, all things come to light in time.