Honestly, what I remember most from my childhood is being alone.
I actually haven’t considered it much as an adult until my sister brought it up after her recent injury. Suffering from a quite severe break to her humerus, my sister needed a lot of help adjusting to her temporary one-armed life after her injury. My mom, who was living across the parking lot from her, seemed to be the most convenient, and – one would think – compassionate of helpers during this time.
Now – sidebar- my sis is not an amiable patient. Nor a patient patient. (I love those two words together!) She is demanding, ornery (on an everyday basis, before any injury is involved) and her behavior is often pejorative.
I called my sister to check on her a few days post surgery. Her response was, per the usual, to complain. “Mom is NOT a good caregiver. I’d have been better off hiring someone! It makes me try to remember: what was she like when we were young?”
At first, it seemed ridiculous to even entertain. After several reports/bitch-fests from my sister, I did start to ponder it. What are my memories from childhood, and what do they contain? They contain me. They contain Eric Best, the kid up the street, who taught me how to ride my bike. They entail a tape recorder and a hideaway in a coat closet where I would hide away and record my lonely thoughts.
Not that my childhood was horrible- it wasn’t. I don’t have horrible memories. However, my memories, when I recollect, include very little of my family.
I was a latchkey kid at 8 years old. My sister was in middle school, and both my parents worked in the school system. I recollect that the bus dropped me off around 2:45pm, and my sister didn’t get home till around 5:30. I would get off of the bus, and walk around to the back door (because somehow this made me look conspicuously less alone) and I let myself in by the key I wore around my neck. I would spend the next 2 hours cowered in the kitchen or the den until my sister got off of the middle school bus, where she would immediately lock herself in her room and talk on the phone.
My mom and my stepdad worked, and then went out to dinner with each other. I remember my kid-made dinners as Lebanon bologna sammies, fried bologna with BBQ sauce or frozen dinners. That being said, my mom had actually stopped cooking 2 years prior. A family dinner ended abruptly when my sister and I had asked my dad if the side dish was any good (since we were being forced to eat it. ) My dad said. “NO.”
By the time I was 13, I was in a competition cheer squad, and heavily involved in the youth group of a church of two of my cheer team mates. I was dropped off at home my other people parents, and I was picked up for church services by older kids.
At 14, I was dating a guy 6 years older than me, and hanging out with his friends. As a side note, I speak with my 14 year old niece and think…what the hell were my parents thinking?? I DID meet the guy in church and the relationship remined somewhat chaste, but if had been any other guy, the story could be different.
But that’s just it – it’s not a different story. It almost sounds like a Stephen King story where the child characters in a Stephen King novel seem to live in a bubble and have absent parents, bullies,
Gen Xers out there – what was your childhood like? Were your parents front and enter or orbitig in the background?
The coffee, the diesel, the methamphetamine 