Time moves, regardless of what is happening. Sometimes it moves fast, sometimes slow. Days turn into weeks, weeks into months, seasons change and so does the year. Slowly the abnormal becomes normal, what was lost remains lost. I walked through those years in a fog, but always trying to have a smile on my face no matter what feelings ripped through me.
Then I woke up and I was out of third grade, 8 years old, getting ready for another year of school. A new change occurred. Meeting Joe was very interesting. Joe was the future. I will never forget our first meeting. I was 8 and still best friends with the boy next door, still as unsupervised as ever Monday through Friday.
When he began the debate, and it was a real debate about a young white girl having a friend that was black and a boy - to this Italian it just wasn't proper. Neither one of us won that debate. He conceded that he had a best friend in the Navy who was black, but that was as far as it ever went. I think I lost part of the battle, because soon we were moving across town - worlds away from my known and into the unknown world of West Pittsfield with the cute little brown cape set down behind a bunch of trees with a yellow smiley face on it which you could see when you were on Route 20 coming from New York State.
Life couldn't be bad in a little house on three acres with a river running through it and a HUGE pine tree in the yard next to the house. Turns out the neighborhood kids were all afraid of the man that lived down that long driveway, but most of my experiences were good.
It was nice that we had dinner on the table, ate together and conversations at the table were always interesting, Sunday drives, Chatham Fair, Lebanon Flea Markets, dinners out - splitting Pu Pu platters with my brother, seeing who could eat the most pizza at the Pizza Hut all you can eat night, Sunday cookouts at the cottage, Misquamicut Beach for a week in the Summer with Mom's family. My Mom had a job in a factory now, so she was home in the afternoon and went right to her room until dinner. My Mom only cooks two or three things so Joe was the cook, unless it was during his working season and then I started dinner after I did my homework.
School still was a challenge socially more than academically, but now in the winter, as Joe was a seasonal truck driver and got laid off, I did learn the trick of pretending to be sick, going to the nurse, or the school secretary and calling home and getting dismissed. I don't know how many times in a week for two years that I got away with that one!
I was sick with stress and anxiety. I tried my best, but this school was the exact opposite of my last school, it wasn't a poor neighborhood school. The teachers were good and there was an actual cafeteria and a gym. I was still chasing the boys who picked on me and kicking them in the shins, but now I had wooden clogs which I am sure were much more painful than soft sneakers. Nobody really noticed my stress or anxiety and at least I had an adult to talk to in Joe, who always listened and shared wisdom with me when I was younger.
It is funny what we remember. I had to stop in between writing this piece and taking a brief intermission, as it were. After a very bad day in which nothing bad happened other than my memories coming back to haunt me.
The day to day details of my life are unimportant. I was a loner with a ton of woods right in my backyard. Nature was my best friend, aside from our dog who licked my tears when I was sad and alone. He had the softest fur to bury all of my pain and sorrow and a sturdy shoulder to cry on. He never bit me like the humans in my life. He was consistently a good fellow.
One thing that didn't change was the desire to remain my father's daughter and I spent many a weekend at his parents house hoping that he would show up. My Gramma loved to bake and when we knew my Dad was coming we would make his favorite desserts, and on his birthday my Gram would bake him an Angel Food Cake - which if you have ever made one, you know it is difficult. I have tried and failed many times to succeed but my efforts remain futile.
We, my brother and I were not allowed to 'see' our father. My mother hated him. I didn't hate him and my brother was not too young to remember him, but too young to fight for his right to see our Dad. When my Dad called at our house to talk it always made me happy and sad. I was happy to hear his voice and sad that he wasn't in our life. Then the fun came - the meanness from everyone in my family from my mother to my brother and Joe jumping in as well putting my father down. It was depressing and it made me angry. It would also leave me speechless and with tears welling in my eyes no matter how I tried not to - tears just made everything worse. My mother and Joan Crawford could have been related. When "Mommie Dearest" came out and I was reading it my mother had a little fit, I only wish I was joking!
Life became more structured and routine. If you think it is easy adjusting to being a part of a happy and loving family unit, having that disappear, along with seemingly, both of your parents at once, getting 'used" to that situation only to be dragged through a rabbit hole into a whole new universe along with renewed family unit, only your real parents are still absent, and instead you have a stranger who makes your decisions, cooks your meals and provides a roof over your head in a whole house with a bunch of land - you would be mistaken.
It might not have been that bad if my new Dad hadn't encouraged me to march to the beat of my own drum and be an individual - which I always have been I think. But to encourage someone to be unique and punish them for it is a real kick in the pants to say the least, especially as I became a teenager and entered junior high and as it happens - beyond.
Then I woke up and I was out of third grade, 8 years old, getting ready for another year of school. A new change occurred. Meeting Joe was very interesting. Joe was the future. I will never forget our first meeting. I was 8 and still best friends with the boy next door, still as unsupervised as ever Monday through Friday.
When he began the debate, and it was a real debate about a young white girl having a friend that was black and a boy - to this Italian it just wasn't proper. Neither one of us won that debate. He conceded that he had a best friend in the Navy who was black, but that was as far as it ever went. I think I lost part of the battle, because soon we were moving across town - worlds away from my known and into the unknown world of West Pittsfield with the cute little brown cape set down behind a bunch of trees with a yellow smiley face on it which you could see when you were on Route 20 coming from New York State.
Life couldn't be bad in a little house on three acres with a river running through it and a HUGE pine tree in the yard next to the house. Turns out the neighborhood kids were all afraid of the man that lived down that long driveway, but most of my experiences were good.
It was nice that we had dinner on the table, ate together and conversations at the table were always interesting, Sunday drives, Chatham Fair, Lebanon Flea Markets, dinners out - splitting Pu Pu platters with my brother, seeing who could eat the most pizza at the Pizza Hut all you can eat night, Sunday cookouts at the cottage, Misquamicut Beach for a week in the Summer with Mom's family. My Mom had a job in a factory now, so she was home in the afternoon and went right to her room until dinner. My Mom only cooks two or three things so Joe was the cook, unless it was during his working season and then I started dinner after I did my homework.
School still was a challenge socially more than academically, but now in the winter, as Joe was a seasonal truck driver and got laid off, I did learn the trick of pretending to be sick, going to the nurse, or the school secretary and calling home and getting dismissed. I don't know how many times in a week for two years that I got away with that one!
I was sick with stress and anxiety. I tried my best, but this school was the exact opposite of my last school, it wasn't a poor neighborhood school. The teachers were good and there was an actual cafeteria and a gym. I was still chasing the boys who picked on me and kicking them in the shins, but now I had wooden clogs which I am sure were much more painful than soft sneakers. Nobody really noticed my stress or anxiety and at least I had an adult to talk to in Joe, who always listened and shared wisdom with me when I was younger.
It is funny what we remember. I had to stop in between writing this piece and taking a brief intermission, as it were. After a very bad day in which nothing bad happened other than my memories coming back to haunt me.
The day to day details of my life are unimportant. I was a loner with a ton of woods right in my backyard. Nature was my best friend, aside from our dog who licked my tears when I was sad and alone. He had the softest fur to bury all of my pain and sorrow and a sturdy shoulder to cry on. He never bit me like the humans in my life. He was consistently a good fellow.
One thing that didn't change was the desire to remain my father's daughter and I spent many a weekend at his parents house hoping that he would show up. My Gramma loved to bake and when we knew my Dad was coming we would make his favorite desserts, and on his birthday my Gram would bake him an Angel Food Cake - which if you have ever made one, you know it is difficult. I have tried and failed many times to succeed but my efforts remain futile.
We, my brother and I were not allowed to 'see' our father. My mother hated him. I didn't hate him and my brother was not too young to remember him, but too young to fight for his right to see our Dad. When my Dad called at our house to talk it always made me happy and sad. I was happy to hear his voice and sad that he wasn't in our life. Then the fun came - the meanness from everyone in my family from my mother to my brother and Joe jumping in as well putting my father down. It was depressing and it made me angry. It would also leave me speechless and with tears welling in my eyes no matter how I tried not to - tears just made everything worse. My mother and Joan Crawford could have been related. When "Mommie Dearest" came out and I was reading it my mother had a little fit, I only wish I was joking!
Life became more structured and routine. If you think it is easy adjusting to being a part of a happy and loving family unit, having that disappear, along with seemingly, both of your parents at once, getting 'used" to that situation only to be dragged through a rabbit hole into a whole new universe along with renewed family unit, only your real parents are still absent, and instead you have a stranger who makes your decisions, cooks your meals and provides a roof over your head in a whole house with a bunch of land - you would be mistaken.
It might not have been that bad if my new Dad hadn't encouraged me to march to the beat of my own drum and be an individual - which I always have been I think. But to encourage someone to be unique and punish them for it is a real kick in the pants to say the least, especially as I became a teenager and entered junior high and as it happens - beyond.
