Journaling

 

I've been sick so long I'm beginning to feel maudlin, so I thought I might do a quick recap of my life. My earliest years were filled with the magic of lies told by well meaning people, especially my mother.  Stories of people who weren't who they looked like, or who I thought they were. Stories of Kitten land were kittens grew on plants awaiting their mothers who came to pick them. Dreams of little tiny people and horses who lived inside the big box my parents called a television.

I started kindergarten right after my fifth birthday and Thanksgiving thinking I was on the road to my father's world of books and papers. It was scary and I said I was going to be like my mommy and not go to college. 

I met two important people right away due to alphabetic nap time! Patrick and Pearson, whose rugs were right next to mine. Prehn!

The next six years were spent learning and playing with them and my best friend who moved to our city from Canada. She and I played dolls with her fourposter doll bed and mirrored chifferobe. The boys and I rode bikes, played chess and ran electric trains. We used to quiz ourselves on how quickly we could do things forwards and backwards, like do re mi, or the preamble to the constitution, complete with punctuation.

As the eldest child in the family I led the way. When we moved to the country I took all my siblings and two neighbor children across the country roads to an old quarry that was flooded. We were in the process of swimming when my mother found us and made us all rid home in front of her car.

When I was fifteen I had my Invite. A party held in a ballroom where the girls, in fancy gowns were escorted by boys in tuxedos and presented to society. We were ready to date. In theory only. The only dating I did right then was go to other Invites.

When I was sixteen I was playing baseball with a bunch of neighborhood children when Patrick (the same one I met in kindergarten) pulled up in his TR4 convertible and I was whisked off on a dream come true.

Life seemed perfect. I was in all advanced classes at school, playing in the orchestra, going to Invites and dating a boy with a cool car!

Then we moved to a small town where my mother grew up.