Childhood (ages 5-10)
Friends – My friends were where I began to see that my normal was not thee normal. They either had dads that went to work and moms who stayed at home, or both parents worked; only one friend was being raised by a single mom. My dad stayed at home because he was disabled so that made me feel different, even though none of my friends ever mentioned it. It was really nice being taken to and picked up from school by my dad because he was the one who made a more emotional connection with me. My mom had many siblings but she didn’t have many friends and so I never saw her make emotional connections with too many people. Looking back on my friendships right now, I am glad that mature emotions were not a requirement at this age. …show more content…
I never knew my maternal or paternal grandparents so I didn’t have to worry about them and I thought I would never see the day my parents would die. I realized that death was a feared subject for me because it was emotional and I didn’t want to have to be emotional in the presence of people. Even as a child I held my emotions in, not to appear strong, but rather to remain in control. What did I know about keeping it all together at 10? I didn’t want any attention placed on me and so I never wanted a reason to draw any, and if there was one thing that made people ask questions it was death. I had to reassure myself that it would never happen to me so I disconnected at an early age. I wasn’t afraid of losing a loved one, I was afraid of the feelings that came with it, all of the people being around, and the questions that no one has the strength or desire to answer. I never gave thought to how or whether I would miss them or the void the loss would create, I was concerned with how my friends would look at me and what they would think. Death, to me, was an attention getter because what I didn’t realize is that people were showing concern and came to support and encourage you. I never took the time to look closely at it because it just wasn’t important enough to devote …show more content…
We visited and had family over and I watched my mom prepare dinner for a small during Thanksgiving. I hated that during Thanksgiving I would watch my mother would put this ginormous turkey in the oven at night and then I would go to bed expecting that I could help, or at least watch when she resumed, only for me to wake up and find that the entire dinner was just about complete. I don’t know if she prepared dishes during the week or if she only pretended to go to bed so that I could get out of her way, probably the latter, but she prepared it all with no help. The tradition was that my mom would slave for hours, sleep for minutes, and serve everyone at dinner time; I definitely inherited that from her. Christmas was smaller, the siblings would come by to collect gifts and grab something to eat but there was still a tremendous sense of family, those were the best times of the year. During Christmas I would be allowed to stay up all night watching my mom bake cookies of every kind, coconut, sugar, lemon, chocolate chip, oatmeal, cut out cookies, and peanut butter. She made cookies that lasted from the middle of December through January but I was only allowed to watch because “children don’t belong in the kitchen”. We didn’t have conversations about building or creating traditions so I didn’t exactly know that these were our family
Friends – My friends were where I began to see that my normal was not thee normal. They either had dads that went to work and moms who stayed at home, or both parents worked; only one friend was being raised by a single mom. My dad stayed at home because he was disabled so that made me feel different, even though none of my friends ever mentioned it. It was really nice being taken to and picked up from school by my dad because he was the one who made a more emotional connection with me. My mom had many siblings but she didn’t have many friends and so I never saw her make emotional connections with too many people. Looking back on my friendships right now, I am glad that mature emotions were not a requirement at this age. …show more content…
I never knew my maternal or paternal grandparents so I didn’t have to worry about them and I thought I would never see the day my parents would die. I realized that death was a feared subject for me because it was emotional and I didn’t want to have to be emotional in the presence of people. Even as a child I held my emotions in, not to appear strong, but rather to remain in control. What did I know about keeping it all together at 10? I didn’t want any attention placed on me and so I never wanted a reason to draw any, and if there was one thing that made people ask questions it was death. I had to reassure myself that it would never happen to me so I disconnected at an early age. I wasn’t afraid of losing a loved one, I was afraid of the feelings that came with it, all of the people being around, and the questions that no one has the strength or desire to answer. I never gave thought to how or whether I would miss them or the void the loss would create, I was concerned with how my friends would look at me and what they would think. Death, to me, was an attention getter because what I didn’t realize is that people were showing concern and came to support and encourage you. I never took the time to look closely at it because it just wasn’t important enough to devote …show more content…
We visited and had family over and I watched my mom prepare dinner for a small during Thanksgiving. I hated that during Thanksgiving I would watch my mother would put this ginormous turkey in the oven at night and then I would go to bed expecting that I could help, or at least watch when she resumed, only for me to wake up and find that the entire dinner was just about complete. I don’t know if she prepared dishes during the week or if she only pretended to go to bed so that I could get out of her way, probably the latter, but she prepared it all with no help. The tradition was that my mom would slave for hours, sleep for minutes, and serve everyone at dinner time; I definitely inherited that from her. Christmas was smaller, the siblings would come by to collect gifts and grab something to eat but there was still a tremendous sense of family, those were the best times of the year. During Christmas I would be allowed to stay up all night watching my mom bake cookies of every kind, coconut, sugar, lemon, chocolate chip, oatmeal, cut out cookies, and peanut butter. She made cookies that lasted from the middle of December through January but I was only allowed to watch because “children don’t belong in the kitchen”. We didn’t have conversations about building or creating traditions so I didn’t exactly know that these were our family