Who am I?
Who cares?
What is the summation of my life?
I was born in Texas; but do not remember it. My family--a military family--moved to Manheim, Germany, before I could remember anything. I do remember nearly being hit by a car as I learned how to ride my bike on training wheels; and how tearfully apologetic the female driver was. I actually felt bad for her. We lived in what used to be 'servant's quarters'. It all felt so big, but if I went back, it'd probably be tiny. I remember, breifly, my sister Julie. I saw her in the doorframe of the hallway, with clogs overhung, everything in tones of yellow. My visage was from the floor. I think I was a baby; because my vantage point was from the floor. I know she left back to the states to live with her dad before I was very old.
I remember... my brothers giving me money for the candy truck. This was back in the day before it was non-PC to sell candy cigarettes. I remember candy lips and root beer bottles. I remember running over my father. He was working on this van, underneath it, and apparently I scuttled downstairs, got in the driver's seat, put the van in gear, and it shifted off the curb onto his head. I ran upstairs and got him a bandaid as my mother was helping him off to the hospital. There was blood pouring down the side of his head. He suffered nothing but superficial damage, but still relishes in telling the story. When I was little I would cry with embarassment and guilt about it.
I remember the Berlin wall coming down... in the form of my school having half the student body on either side of the field outside, with a giant wall of boxes. One side held the American flag, the other, the German. We ran screaming into the wall, tearing down the boxes. It was so much fun. My family visited the wall thereafter. I remember picking up some graffiti pieces of brick; they were pink and purple. They would later be thieved from us on Louisiana, along with a large conch shell.
We went to a mall and got soft pretzels once. I remember a skylight. I also remember Gerhardt and his wife; they gave m e a doll. I spoke German to them. I can't remember any German now. I used to ride my tricycle to school because it was so close to our quarters that my mother could stand at the edge of the building and see the path clear to the school.
There was a corn-field and strawberry patch in the neighborhood. I remember we could go and pick as many strawberries as we wanted and pay by the pound. I got lost in the cornfield once, and wound up in some adjacent woods, where a toad or frog peed on my foot and I got a wart. My mother was calling for me and my lost sister with desperation in her voice. She was happy to find us. There was also some sort of construction going on near the woods; there were massive piles of dirt, like mountains. They seemed so incredibly big to me. I used to ride bikes with my brothers on those dirt mounds, enjoying the exhilaration of the wind as I descended.
We had some sort of school related hike in which I received a medal thereafter, for completing it. I can't remember the caption at the bottom, but it was in Deutsch. I prized that thing, and I'm still kind of sad it's long gone--along with all my other pre-2011 possessions--because of a vindictive ex. People say 'things' don't matter, but I think that's kind of cruel. We have history and emotion vested in our things, we work hard for them, so why is it so wrong to be sad about losing them? Talk to some Hurricane Katrina victims, as I have, and maybe you'll rethink saying things like "it's just stuff". It's water under the bridge, I guess, but it still bugs me when people are treated like crap for the innocent act of missing their things. It's not wrong.
There were teenagers. Sadistic. They killed a baby bird in front of me, then ran me into the basement of the opposing quarters, where they bullied me into taking my swimsuit off. I cried so hard, and ran home. They chased me, and beat on the door. My mother shooed them off to my cries of 'don't beleive them!' because they were saying awful sexual things about how I was dirty girl who 'exposed [herself]'. They left a pile of money outside a basement door another day. When I came, found it, took it, they burst out, took it from me, and ridiculed me for 'stealing'. I had a friend... Rachel? I can't remember... but she was older by a few years. She hid some hand-drawn toy money under the swing set between our quarters and the next. I found it after following a hand drawn treasure map she made for me--I was so excited!--and then the bullies showed up, told me it was fake, and tore it up.
People are.... mean. Cruel. That's the lesson I learned then. I learned to fear people.
And it still sticks with me now.
I had a little friend named Robert. We got it into our heads we could create a swimming pool by flooding the stairwell in his building. What we didn't know is that, well, the basement door isn't airtight. As a result, when we put a running hose in the stairwell, it flooded the basement below. Parents railed for our punishment. To their credit, and my great relief, my parents understood I didn't understand the physics of the matter, and didn't tar my hide. To this day; I'm grateful. I was an ignorant baby. They got that.
I remember the snow. Building a snowman by rolling a ball of snow behind the building. I loved it.
My sister Sarah had a boyfriend. I can't remember his name, but I remember that he was nice. I chased a rainbow once; but got scared at an overpass and turned back home. I had a best friend named Kendell. We got chicken pox together, and I remember a birthday with her at the end of the table.
My mom ran an in-home daycare. Someone stole her wallet. I pursued them like crazy, and wound up digging it from the sand under a swing-set. It was sans her paper money, but she was so proud of me of working so hard--like a little detective--to root out the truth and get the boy who stole it to tell me where it was... and she was happy to have her credit cards, driver's license, etc. back. I was so happy to have her so proud of me.
We moved close to my 7th birthday, to the US. Louisiana...
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