I had a thought the other night. Yeah, I know, that could be dangerous and no, the house didn’t burn down. Things that I remember from growing up. I don’t remember much. There are certain flashes or glimpses that I see in my mind’s eye. Most of the memories though are from pictures. My parents were always good about taking photos of the things we did. We had movies also, mostly of my older sisters, a few of my brother and I think one of me.
My mom a couple of years ago decided to go through the pictures and make not 1 but 5 scrapbooks for the 4 kids and herself. This was a major task as there were so many pictures. That Christmas was fun. Looking at the pictures and remembering how much fun we had as a family. And still do as a matter of fact.
Back to my original subject..things I remember. Here is a list. It might not be all encompassing but it’s from the early years. The memories are in yellow. The explanations are in parenthesis.
1. A sheet with a cut out being laid over my face. ( I had to have stitches in my eyebrow from falling off my bed in the middle of the night and hitting my brother’s bed.)
2. Christmas eve and my mom was trying to keep an ice pack on my nose. (I was 2 1/2. I had tripped over something and hit the hearth with my face. I broke my nose but at that age you can’t do anything about it because your bones are still growing. My nose still pops when you press on it.
3. Opening the front door and getting run over by our big black full size poodle named Blackie. (Blackie loved to run the neighborhood any chance he got. I couldn’t stop him because I was so little.)
4. The Christmas tree being so big.
5. Playing tag with the neighbors kids. (This however lead me to being attached by a dog. I was the youngest of all the kids and always last or it. Easy target for tag or the dog, I wouldn’t let him in the bathroom because I thought he would be mad at me for getting hurt on his birthday. He wasn’t mad….Dads are so cool. Mom however was very upset!)
7. The pain of torn ligaments in my ankle because I hit the bag too late. (When my jerk of a softball coach said slide you had to slide no matter if you were right on top of the bag or not. Hence, the torn ligaments in the ankle but I was safe)
8. Sitting in the front door watching kids walk home from school.
9. Being able to throw the football better than all the boys in the neighborhood. (I was the only girl till I was 13.)
Most of my memories are of accidents. I wonder if there is something that happens with the brain when it goes through a trauma that imprints a memory more clearly than any other emotion. There are other things I remember but they are more general, like feelings of joy or hurt, not specific events. As you might have guessed I have had more than my fair share of accidents. The ones above don’t even scratch the surface on that side of me. There is usually one specific period in time in an accident that I remember and then everything else is general feelings. It’s very strange the way the brain works and not knowing how much of it we actually use is the scary part to me. If we were to use all of our brain capabilities, what would our world be like….for the good or destroyed? All I can think is Terminator….
and on that note….
I’ll be back
(sorry had to!!)
Later
