I Will Take As Many Words As I Want To Write This Story

[b]Remembering[/b]

[i][c=#BF0000]I sit here tonight with tears in my eyes. Which is to say they refuse to flow but the eye itself is moist with wetness as if the tear is being stubborn. Ladies will understand what I mean yet this is not an issue conducive only to women. In a way it is a feeling I hate. I would rather be moved to the point of happiness than sadness.

Getting old sucks!! We start to realize what we had, what we lost-and worse, what we let ourselves lose. It’s not regrets per se, or at least regrets in the way the word is meant to be used yet the feeling is similar to it. Sensing loss and feeling regret are two different things.

I saw this picture tonight and it reminded me of where I grew up[/c][/i]


[i][c=#BF0000]I’ll not say I had a happy childhood as I did not, I suffered mental abuse at the hands of those who should have watched over me and loved me. My teen years were no better. No dates, no dances, no kissing, no hugging…et al. I felt as a leper and a social pariah.

But this picture reminded my of the acres of woods we owned I would often “get lost” in. Not to mention any land owned by a neighbor. Nature, the universe, whatever you want to call it can be spectacular at times. It is a wonder to behold. It is one of those things I spoke of, that once we no longer have we long for. In this case time and circumstance took me away from the woods I once played it.

But listen. I want no pity, sympathy or empathy. There are far many that have had their young lives much worse than I did. As long lasting as mental abuse is I cannot fathom how to cope with physical abuse. That has to be its own separate hell. I never had a Father- at least one I knew. And yet there are those who never had a Father as he ran off and their mother died giving birth. It is those people that are worthy of your pity, sympathy and empathy.

I am enough of a realist to NOT wish to go back and change anything. Even the times the bar of soaps my Grandmother made, with lye and lard , were put into my mouth to “wash it out” .

Or the many number of times my Grandmother or mother walked into my room, with the door closed, and snapped my 45 rpm record I was playing in half as they did not like the song.

I wouldn’t change any of that.

You see, and this is one of life’s great secrets(and a quote oft attributed to ME!) we are the sum of ALL of past experiences. That is to say that who we are now, how we are now, is the sum of all those past experiences. The good and the bad. They shape us in ways we often cannot conceive.

And I kinda like myself. That is to say I kinda like the person I am and that I became. Not all, when they assess themselves, feel the same of themselves.

That, and the treatment I got at the hands of those people taught me HOW TO BE a good parent-and what I would never do to my children.

And so I sit here lamenting loss. Lost innocence, lost youth, lost opportunities, lost intimacy.

I sit here remembering…

…with a stubborn tear in my eye.[/c][/i]