i'm not sure if it was one (or all) of my seven concussions. or the mass amounts of alcohol and drugs i abused throughout my college years, but i can't recollect much of my childhood years.
it kind of bums me out. but only sometimes.
like, my cousin staci, (who's pretty much a sister to me), will ask me about a certain instance from childhood, and as much as i'd like to join her on the laughter and trip down nostalgia lane, i'm usually coming up blank.
is this a good thing? or a bad thing? i'm not so sure.
you see, growing up as a root child wasn't necessarily the easiest venture. i'm sure both staci and my brother can attest to that. the game i learned the hard way, yet the most valuable, would be the child parent role reversal.
it was fun watching your mom get high. listening to the verbal abuse backfire between your single parent and her boyfriend. growing up with movies like nightmare on elm street and child's play as your babysitter. getting almost everything you asked for, b/c it was a quick fix to parenting. "CANDY!" the child screamed. "what kind???" butterfinger. reese's peanut butter cup. rollo's. caramello. mallow cups. just. shut. her. up.
but really all the kid needed was some discipline. and attention. all the new troll dolls and barbie dolls couldn't substitute the darkholes of what existed. and was forthcoming. as the girl grew in age, she learned some pretty shitty lessons in life. such as independence. heartbreak. loneliness. but i guess them's the brakes, right?
don't get me wrong. it's not entirely my mom's fault. while some dark shit went down throughout my pubescent years, there were some good times. i just can't remember them all. and that's the part that makes me sad. i'm tired of being haunted by the nightmares. the unthinkable recollections that i can't seem to shake. it's time to reflect on what was great. innocence, what was remaining. so many times i just wish i could be a kid again.
but damn. i guess i do remember some positive things. like playing monsters, running and diving down the hills with stace every time a car would drive by - freezing in terror if a headlight shone upon one of us until we freeze tag crawled through one another's legs. or hanging out in the laundromat, free cart rides and shoving the neighbor boys into the economy sized dryers. witche's stew in the tree trunks, ladeling the rainwater amongst the twigs, convinced in all its delectable flavors. burying treasure in my backyard and losing the homemade maps. swinging from the willow tree branches, crawling amongst the old baseball diamond bleachers and leaping into the flood waters. chasing my younger cousins with giant possessed teddy bears and sliding down the stairwells in sleeping bags into a pit of pillows. sourpatch straws. ouija board bicycle ventures to the graveyard on the hill. scraping together change with staci in desperate efforts of scoring some broasted chicken. playing bar in my cousin lacy's trailer. (shots of pickle juice, anyone? HIT ME.)
sigh.
if only i could rewind and do it all again. learning the ropes of life and starting over.
but i guess if that were the case i wouldn't know everything i know now. and i think i'm doing aight by me for now. time to look forward, it's not like i can really look back with much precision anyhow. . . i would like to thank my 10th grade biology class, soper hill sledding, the bloodhound gang, maury povich, nitrous oxide and my natural grace for that.
maybe it's time i invest in a helmet?
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