Is there a single scene or event that sums up your childhood memories?

Something involving my best friend, I think. What defined me most was the great influence the people around me had, be that my best friend, parents, brother, teachers, etc. Maybe something from my 5th grade class. That was the best year of elementary school for me.

Playing pretend. We played poor girls a lot. I think it was based off of A Little Princess, but I’m not sure. We also played school and hotel and other things.

My best friend’s little sister was 5 years younger than us and we’d all play together. I remember one day, though, when we were about 13 and she was 8 and she wanted to play pretend. My friend was all for it, I guess because she was just used to having a younger sister. I couldn’t though. It was the scariest feeling. I couldn’t play pretend anymore. It just wasn’t in me. I was not capable of imagining those things anymore and playing those roles. It was like losing my childhood.

This is me and my younger brother. He always copied me, out of respect of course. It was a pretty big part of my childhood. We were cute :)

Jeruba, since you know what mine is, and it’s sad, I won’t post the whole thing here again. I don’t want to bring your question down!

If anyone is interested, you can read it here.

Weekends.

My father and I walking to the corner store, changing the sheets, dry mopping the floors, watching Abbot & Costello or Candlepin Bowling.

My mother gossiping on the phone, swearing at bills on the kitchen table, cursing through preparing a barely edible dinner, having a meltdown, telling us to leave her the fuck alone.

Evening: My folks arguing while getting dressed up to go clubbing at Pal Joey’s or some other disco. Me staying with my grandmother, aunt, uncle, or neighbor.

Repeat; for ten years.

Grilling on the back porch in the summertime.

drunken people in the house….

“a child waving out the back window of a car to his friends he’ll never see again.”

We moved every 18–24 months. Had to restart friendships, re-establish a new house, build a new routine; only to have to do it over and over again. It was like Groundhog Day.

On the brighter side though I was able to experience cultures not many people do. I just wish I hadn’t been so angry at the time and realized how lucky I was.

My childhood was far too complicated – good, bad, death, abuse – to be summed up by a single image or scene. If I want to focus on happy times, I could picture my friend Shirley and me swimming together in the pond on her farm. But the rest is such a muddle, I’ve been trying to assimilate it for years.

me stood on my own in the playgroud
trying to hide
lonely
picked on
very sad indeed
the rest of the children playing and having fun

Camping with my dad and sister.

There is one that marked me for life.

I was in Greece and went out to play with some local kids (this is mid-70s, just after the Turkish invasion of Cyprus). One of the older ones said: “don’t play with this guy. His dad is English and the English invaded Cyprus”. My dad’s not even English, and of course Cyprus had been independent for over a decade by then, but he was 8 or so, and I was even younger than that, so everyone just took his word for it.
I think that comment defined me in several ways.
1. I ended up playing on my own, which overall made me more creative, but not as social in the long run.
2. It defined my national (and political) identity and I never felt I belonged to a national or racial group, generally leaning more towards the Left as a result.
3. It made me more interested in history, so that I’d get the facts right (not saying I ever did, but at least I tried to).

Having at least 35,000 acres of woods, fields, creeks, and a completely rural environment in which to explore. Going mushroom hunting at age five with my Mom and her best friend, or my Dad taking me squirrel hunting when I was nine, and getting to carry the ones he shot, or catching snakes with my older brothers to take home as pets. All great memories that far outweigh the bad ones. So why do the bad ones keep haunting me?