I am nearly ready to move past my early childhood into my adolescence and the troubles that followed.  I anticipate that it will be more difficult to talk about that time, because as with all teenage girls, my early teens were volatile.  That's not anything unusual, so I'm sure it will be nothing different than any other teen girl angst, but I'll write it anyway.

Before I get to that though, there are a few incidents from my childhood that don't fall in sensibly or chronologically with anything else that I wanted to discuss.  I had scratched several notes in my journal regarding incidents I wanted to rehash, and I didn't address them in prior posts.  It seemed silly to post a separate blog for each of them, so I'm lumping them together here to get them off my chest-therefore this post will be randomly pieced together and might not make much sense.  Because I have nowhere else to file these memories, they get their own category.  I'll at least try to address them in somewhat of a chronological order here.

First up, random happy memories that came back to me.  There weren't many things filed away in my mind that fell into this category, but I did want to give them attention as well.  I don't want to present only the negatives, because the positives also helped shape who I became.

The biggest that sticks out at me was actually recurring, although not consistently timed.  Every once in a while when I went to Mom's, she'd let me stay up all night with her.  These nights were rare but I LOVED them.  We'd paint our nails, "Sweat to the Oldies" with Richard Simmons, and watch movies (Mom is responsible for my love of "Grease").  She also taught me to crochet during this time, which I turned into a lifelong hobby. I remember how much I relished these nights with Mom-I had her all to myself, with no siblings or Dad or family friends to butt in.  Even today I don't get one-on-one time with Mom unless I essentially kidnap her and force her to come alone.  Mom always has an entourage.  And I needed Mommy-daughter time so badly growing up.  Granted, Mom was not very skilled at styling hair, but I never had anyone to teach me how to do anything but brush mine.  Nobody taught me how to do my makeup-I learned that skill through "Seventeen" magazine as a teen.  My friends in school taught me to fix my own hair eventually.  It seems trivial, but that's what mothers are supposed to be for.  She wasn't the one that taught me to shave my legs-that was Minnie.  She didn't teach me how to use a tampon-I learned that from a friend, and it was a humiliating experience.  As many dance recitals and band performances that I was in, she only came to see one performance-my 8th grade talent show.  I remember BEGGING her to come see me march in high school-I offered to pay the way for her and my siblings-and she refused. ..but she never missed my brothers' football games.

I need her still.  There have been times that I've called her crying my eyes out, but she was always busy.  She pretends to listen to me but is holding two or three separate conversations with people in the background a well.  I don't think she gets that I need her full focused attention sometimes.  I still long for her to hold me, rock me, and tell me everything's okay even if it isn't.  Mom says she's there for me now, that she knows she's done me wrong in the past, but she's trying.  Sometimes I still hate her for not being there-for abandoning me the way she did.  I'm 24 years old but still disappointed by my mother.  Only about two months ago, for example, she promised she'd come by my house to see me and my children.  Bear in mind Mom only comes by my house less than ten times a year, if that, so I was excited.  For some reason I didn't tell the kids she was coming, and I'm glad I didn't.  She didn't show.  I waited and waited and finally called her at 9:00 PM-she was at my uncle's house.  It isn't like she was busy, she wasn't working or running errands or doing laundry or anything-she just had someplace better to be.  And it HURT.  There's a distance between me and my mother, and I find that I'm always the one trying to close it.  I call her a few times a week, on my way to or from work so I can concentrate on talking to her without kids in the background.  She rarely initiates contact with me.  But I'm getting ahead of myself.  The biggest betrayal from Mom is yet to come.

Back to tinking happy tots.
Some memories centered around Dad.  For some reason he used to let me name the family pets, and it made me feel special.  We had a hedgehog that I thought was adorable-I named her Mahogany.  Get it? My-hog-annie?  Eh, I was young, I have an excuse. I named our German Shepard Crooked Ear Rachel-and that's what it said on her papers.  I named another dog "twenty bucks," and we also had a dog named "not me," but that was a collaborative effort.  Dad bestowing this honor on me made me feel like I mattered, like I had actually done something right.

Dad would get a wild hair up his butt and decide to have fun with us sometimes.  It was usually when another adult was involved.  For example, when his friend came over for a holiday-New Year's or Christmas or something-he and Dad got completely smashed.  They were giggling and talking over each other.  We actually led Daddy around the yard with a football because he couldn't manage to grab it.  We got away with whatever we wanted that night because he was in such a good mood.

Another time he and our uncle took us hiking at Norris Dam.  We went way back in the woods and found some awesome caves.  It was so adventurous, so unlike Dad.  I had a blast.  The same uncle bought my brothers and sister remote controlled cars for Christmas around that same time, and we spent hours racing them together, as a family.  It was times like those, when he was so out of character, that I could see why everyone that knew him thought he was so wonderful.  This was  the face Dad put on in public.  Too bad he treated us so badly when nobody else was around.

There were more issues that I wanted to write about tonight, but I just can't bring myself to do it.  Yoga sounds like a better alternative right now.  More later.