I knew of all of the sewer stamps, imperfections, and lifted edges from the giant reaching tree roots of the maple trees which lined both sides of Church Street.
I saw the colorful Autumn leaves falling over those concrete and slate blocks year after year.
In the Spring, dodging the many earthworms that found their way onto the sidewalks during seasonal rains became an expected experience. The smell of rain still reminds me of earthworms.
All the way to school, we walked, skipped, and ran over those sidewalks day after day. Step on a crack you break your mother's back. School starts at nine O'clock and Don't. Be. Late.
The March winds blew our faces frozen in that Bradford County Pennsylvania town. Our bicycles fought against the winds no matter the direction you took. And you did ride your bike in March - not able to wait any longer to pedal that freedom-stride.
To this day bumble bees are my favorite insects EVER. I love them so much. They are the funniest of all flying insects. Fat and funny - they buzz around trying to avoid bumping into us. "Ooops, sorry. Didn't mean to get in your space. I'll just buzz around away from you now. Don't mind me." But the honey bee is man's best friend from that world. We must protect them and their future on this earth.
Dreams then were just that - something you did at nighttime during sleep. You didn't imagine to dream in the daytime about anything other than what your life was already presenting. Your family of origin, your school experience, your friends and daily routine became as far as you could see. It was important to get from day to day in an okay tolerable kind of way.
When things were especially difficult at home, I would walk to the Robert Packer Hospital in Sayre, PA (quite a walk for a little kid) where I rode the elevator to the maternity ward. There, I would pace along the wall of windows, viewing the new babies. All the smiling and happy adults made me feel happy too. Nurses and family members of the new babies would often offer me a smile, which filled me then. I felt like somehow I did belong in the world. Like I was on my own there - riding the elevator to the eighth floor (then the highest it would go) - and down to the morgue as well. Finally, I'd have the elevator take me to the main floor and leave the hospital, always seeing the Coke machine outside of the Sayre Motel which was just after the hospital on the way back to my home on 711 Church Street, in Athens, PA.
I thought about the babies on the way home. I watched my little feet along the way on the sidewalks, trying not to break my mother's back. Furthermore, I intended to be good at home. Really good. Nobody would have the chance to be mad at me. Not for anything. At least not anything I could think of or knew about. Often if you were in trouble for something it was a surprise. Something you are just learning about at the time of being accused. NPD lies and BPD believes and empaths stand there stupid and sorry for nothing... lol... But, I got through it. We all got through it.
It would have been great had I learned these people were Narcissistic and Borderlines then or way sooner than I did - BUT - the main thing is I did learn. I know now. What all I endured before this, I needed to in order to learn what I have. It just seems like so many years of being such a fool.
It's a tough thing. What do you do? Become no contact with your own parents because one of them is a psychopath and a liar (thereby going against what our creator has instructed us to do) or do you go non contact and get well as an adult. I waited until my precious borderline father passed away and then went NC, but it meant thirty years of abuse in my adult life from the narcissistic/psychopath mother. Thirty years of hoping against hope she would learn to love and to be a real mother. Giving her chance after chance - forgiveness after forgiveness, time after time.
Ego aside now. It's good I've come this far. It's good to be NC and so much better.
When I saw the above sign post on facebook, it took me back to remembering the wind and the rain - the seasons and the bumble bees. And those adorable new babies in the windows of the maternity ward at the Robert Packer Hospital in Sayre, Pennsylvania all those years ago.
No comments:
Post a Comment