Excerpt of Childhood

I was born into this world, innocent and untainted like most people born in the 80s. Just another crying miracle among a sea of zombie middle-class businessmen and stroller-pushing housewives, I was a person X. Divorce was the perpetrator  killing child-like innocence and crime only occurred outside of our cul-de-sac and white picket fence barrier. I guess the question is…what was the motive? Were we trying to keep bad people out, or keep us in?

Ironic to me, our mothers took so much care to walk us half a block to the bus stop only to trust a complete stranger to take us to school. It was late August when school started each year and I remember them being hot days. The sun would penetrate the green plastic seats and metal seat belt buckles. I would place my pink backpack on my lap to guard my toothpick legs from the burn only to arrive at school sticky. As we would stand up, you could hear the distinct sound of legs peeling off of fake leather. As it burned, everyone shook their legs out to race off the bus. Maybe some were excited to go to school, I was more fearful I would be left on the bus. Things seemed so simple then, there were no task forces for school violence or “it will get better” campaigns for bullying. Our parents thought of us as little angels and the bad that could come from childhood power differentials was just a detail of growing up. It made those good kids better, and those victims stronger.

Whether times were actually simpler is hard to determine, secrets were kept guarded in our large village. No one wanted to find that their story would be fodder fueled by stretched lips creating in and out-groups among mothers. These little secrets are what drove who you had to steer clear of and who was “good people.”  It was definitely a different time than now, as housewives looked critically at working mothers. To work meant your family had no money or apathy to motherhood. 
I remember during those early years how the most upsetting issue I had was that my birthday fell in the summer and I could not celebrate with my school friends on the day I was born. However, the day we actually did celebrate my first school birthday was a little less than satisfying.  It was late April, early May, maybe two or three months after my brother was born. My poor mother had to drag in diaper bags, donut holes and a baby carrier. As my classmates and I sat around awaiting our sugar high, the sun poured in through the dimmed basement windows of the classroom highlighting my teacher’s ginger hair. As she untied the knot of the grocery bag, her face immediately crunched up in horror. She caught whiff of dirty diaper. My mother was so overwhelmed she didn’t realize she brought the dirty diaper bag rather than the donuts. I was mortified, my little face filled with red and my tears welling up. I don’t remember if I cried, but I certainly wanted to. I remember very little of those days, perhaps aside from making friends or dance classes on Saturdays. Perhaps it’s just the child’s nature to focus on the good or the bad and nothing in between. 

I think it’s a concept lost on my mother to this day as every now and then she asks me if I remember my childhood. I suppose what I have never been brave enough to say is that I think my active imagination makes a lot of what I remember hard to decipher truth from fantasy. She was different then, more innocent and trusting. For years I remember my only alarm clock was the sound of her made-up verses to classical show tunes. As she would lean over my white comforter dressed with ballet dancing hippopotamuses, I would awake to the scent of coffee and magenta lipstick filling her thick lips. Her glasses large and thick as if they put her love extended on a time release. I always remember those glasses as if she took them off, she would just love whatever it was in front of her to death. She was quick to show affection and even quicker to say how she felt. She loved us as if we would break if she didn’t say it or show it. I always felt safe, well until my father came home. I don’t think I ever recognized this until just now, but I never did hold very warm feelings for him. Perhaps it was the way I felt my mom change when he was around. I can’t explain it now, but the whole room grew cloudy and hard to interpret. He was larger than life in my eyes, a big man with a large belly. He could often be found sitting on the couch, resting his hands on the perfectly rounded orb.