Chapter 1. Early Memories
There are research studies that link intelligence with how far back one can remember. Maybe. I do not know if that is true, but it is an interesting thought. As a child, I felt one of my good qualities was my intelligence. I was not particularly pretty, I was socially awkward and fat. I gleaned any bit of positive thinking or proof that I was indeed smart from any source I could pull it from.
As I think about my early life, those nature versus nurture events which formed my innermost being, I realized I have some very early memories compared to average. In general, it is believed to be normal to be able to remember back to about four years of age. My first memories are from between the ages of one and two. I know they are memories from the view I recall them in. I also do not have photographs of the things I remember. One is of looking from the yellow stone pattern linoleum on the stair landing of the split level house we lived in out through black twisting wrought iron rails onto the finished basement where our family spent much of our time. The next is the sensation of the short industrial carpet in the kitchen under my hands and knees as I crawled. I was able to describe most of the layout of the house to my mother a few years ago based on my memories, although we have not lived there since I was around two. She confirmed the layout. Where I became foggy on my memories was when it came to remembering places I did not spend much time: my parents bedroom and the living room.
None of these memories is very impressionable, but they are my first memories. As a toddler growing to preschool age, I remember peeling the child safe nail polish from my nails when it chipped while swinging, the feel of the cool mud between my toes and fingers while I made mud pies in the garden where my mother turned me out to play when she needed peace and quiet. My grandmother's wet kisses. The smell of engine oil mixed with dust from the gravel roads at my grandfather's salvage yard where I spent countless hours in his care. I remember riding in his black Chevy, standing in the seat between him and my step-grandmother. I remember him changing my diapers. I remember the night my dad told me "no more diapers". I remember my dad and mom singing the Twelve Days of Christmas to me. My father narrating an 8 mm home movie version of Disney's Robin Hood the sound did not work on. Then the more tense moments when my dad was home from his traveling sales job. From there, the memories usually only come from some dramatic/traumatic event in my life.
Around the age of three or four, I remember my mother crying a lot. I had a little brother who was twenty-two months younger than I was, who was into everything. I do not remember my parents together much. They began having terrible fights, my mother screaming at my father, and my dad just trying to let it go. There were many little things, things I had no comprehension of their true meaning when I was a child, clues to what was going on.
One day, I think it was in the fall, my parents had a huge fight. This one was different. My mother did not shut herself in the bathroom and cry, this time she screamed and hit my father. She hit him over and over, and screamed and cried. My father was standing in front of me, and she knocked him back into me, crushing me between his body and the couch. I remember crying out, and he pleaded with my mom to quit, but she would not. Finally, she relented and the next thing I knew, she left with my little brother. I remember sitting on my dad's lap in the big brown recliner where I had sat with him many times, asking if she would come home. His answer of "I don't know" was not very reassuring. She came back once and asked me to come with her. I shook my head. She left again. I do not remember how long she was gone, but very soon thereafter, my life changed dramatically. There were frequent arguments. My father is usually a very jovial easy-going person, but one fight ended with him kicking a hole in the door leading from the living room to the garage when my mother was having one of her screaming rants. I learned to watch from a distance, so I would not get in the middle of it again. I do not remember my father ever raising a hand to my mother, but she often hit him.
It was a sunny afternoon when my parents called me into their room to talk. My mother sat stoically beside me while my father explained he was leaving. I only needed a moment to register what this meant. I was in kindergarten by now, and smart enough to realize what was happening. I asked if I could go with him. When my mother realized I was serious and would leave her she became angry. I began to cry for my dad, which was his undoing. He cried and tried to take me with him, holding my hand, pulling me with him. My mother held me back by my hair. He let go as she screamed at him to leave. He left me, tears running down his face. I do not remember much after that for awhile. Mostly awkward visits to the house he now lived in with Lynda, his secretary. I had met her before, she had come to my parents house for Christmas dinner. I had spent the night at her house with her daughter, where she lived with her husband. She and my dad were now living together.
Those are all very traumatic moments from those early years. There were some fun times, but I really only have flashes of those. Eureka Springs, Arkansas holds a magic for me, as it was the last place my family went together before my parents split up. There was fighting, but my parents did it in private. I remember being fascinated by animatronic dinosaurs in a man made tar pit, the brilliance of the multi-colored glass in the glass garden, and a miniature house where everything was to scale for a doll. I have returned as an adult, but could not find these places. I remember the cold dampness of the caves we toured in a trailer pulled by a jeep at Fantastic Caverns, a huge series of natural caves. The feel of moisture on stalagmites is unforgettable. So is the utter darkness so far underground when they turned off the lights.
I held onto these memories for a long time, even asking if we could all go back, so maybe the family would get better. My parents' divorce was very bitter and lasted two years in the courts, but the animosity continued for decades. I wondered sometimes how my life might have been had my parents stayed together, but I realize now as an adult my parents are better off apart. My dad realized that early on when he went to the arms of a woman who was everything my mother was not. I realized it when I was a teenager, and chose to live with my dad instead of my mom. My mother never got over my dad. Over thirty years has passed, and to this day, she cries over the loss of her best friend. This breaks my heart, as I would have hoped she could move on to find someone who valued her as she deserves. She is a hard woman to please, so that is a tall order, but for a short time there was someone, but she pushed him away.
My husband's parents split up when he was only one. He remembers thinking of his step-dad as his real dad, and his birth father as the "other guy". He does not know what it was like to have his original family intact. All he has known is a series of blended families and the joys...sarcasm intended...of this. He was the one who was lost in everyone else's selfishness or whatever you call it. I could not imagine his parents together, they are polar opposites, so in the long run, it was probably better they split when they did. The problem with rearranging your life when you have kids is the fact there is a lot of collateral damage. They often feel ignored or unwanted, the target of unfairness and partiality on the part of the step-parent. Animosity is difficult to overcome.
So which is better? To have known the love of an intact family and lost it? Or to never have known and just dealt with whatever came your way? In their defense, my husband's mother is still with the man she left his father for all these years later, and his father is with the same woman he met thirty years ago. Three of our four parents have met and married someone, and have managed to make it work.
My husband and I do not have a perfect life, but it is perfect for me. We made a decision early on our children would come before ourselves. We agreed marriage is forever and knew it is not an easy road. We did not want our children to suffer the broken hearts we endured hearing our parents fight or speak ill of the other. Knowing how hard it is to be the odd-man out in a step family, we never want that for our boys. We have had rocky patches but he has loved me through some of my hard times. And I could not imagine life without my knight in shining armor. That story is yet to come.
