Childhood

My sister and I adored listening to music. We would turn it up on the record player that my grandfather had given us and play all of my grandmother's old records. We had Nancy Sinatra and friends to entertain us for hours. We would dress up, sing, and dance to the music. My sister had a red and black sparkly, plaid skirt that she loved wearing. It was an innocent and joyful time for us. My childhood was what others might dream about....we had a great family unit, and we were always taken care of and loved.

When I was in junior high, I came home from school one day and slammed my bedroom door shut. I played music to drown out my cries. My mom came in and gently asked what had happened. I think she thought someone had hurt me at school or bullied me. I told her that we saw pictures on a filmstrip of bodies laying in a mass grave. Small children, the elderly, and all ages being led to their deaths and placed in train cars like cattle. I saw what the Holocaust looked like, and it made the music that played in my life suddenly sound like nails on a chalkboard. My mom saw that I took things to heart deeply to and pondered them. She said that even as a little girl, I took a baby bird that was sick and put it in a box. I told everyone I was going to "fix it" . Of course, it died during the night and dad buried it, but the next day I proclaimed that it must have hopped away because I took good care of it. I couldn't accept that I had failed a person of being in some way.

As I continued into junior high, I experienced what can be an awkward time. (I will have to post some pictures later of myself during this time so you can get the full idea!) I still loved singing and music. It was a type of refuge for me. However, I put pressure on myself to be the best at everything. There is nothing wrong with trying, but if you sacrifice your soul in the process, it's more than trying your best. If I didn't get the grade I thought I should, the boy I liked didn't like me, look the way I wanted to, chaos would ensue. I started to look in the mirror and trying to make myself look like the other girls at school whom I thought were gorgeous and glamorous. To my dismay, my hair started falling out. As a young teen, you can imagine how I felt about this! I went to the doctor and he said that it was a result of stress. My body was starting to feel the effects of overthinking and stress. I longed for the days when my sister would put on her skirt, we would dress up and sing. I wanted to recapture the times where I felt happy and whole.

This is a poem that I wrote years ago about childhood...

Recapture

Thoughts fly back to times when things were safe,

I fell down, but you helped me up when I skinned my knee,

We laughed when you danced with that sparkly skirt,

You cried when I told you I had to go to school,

I would do anything to recapture that innocence,

Bottle it up and keep it close to my heart,

Because I can't seem to remember where it started,

But I know that it started with childhood and hope,

When we were young and just dreaming,

We believed in fairy tales and magical places,

I found out the fairy tale can fracture,

The magical place can actually be deceptive,

My thoughts are now on things that don't seem safe,

I fell down and skinned my soul,

Do you still have that sparkly skirt?