I doubt that there are many out there who will be interested in the story I have to tell. I write this selfishly, as I hope that by putting my experiences into text I can make a bit more sense out of life. My idealization of my story puts into light the idea that somehow, somewhere, someone will take something from my experiences that could help to assist them.
That being said, let me begin...
My mother and father married early, during their early twenties (in the late eighties). Shortly there after, my mother found herself pregnant with me. I was neither planned, nor avoided, from the stories I have been told. I know little about my mother's pregnancy, and only saw pictures of her pregnant for the first time a little over a year ago, when I myself became pregnant with my first child.
During the beginning stages of their marriage, I know very little, and all I can state from my own personal experience is that they divorced when I was a little over a year old. I know from many a story, and many an experience that this split broke my mother's heart and left her very lonely. We moved in with my grandparents, where I spent the majority of my youngest years.
From here I am able to begin to tell stories that I myself remember bits and pieces of.
My father had little or no interaction with me during those years. The first recollection I have of him occurred when I was somewhere around three years of age. I do not know who arranged the meeting, and it is not terribly relevant in my recollection of events, however, my mother an I were to meet the man who began my life at a run-down gas station in Camden, New Jersey.
The trip was made during one of the colder months of the year, when it was far too cold to be sitting outside to wait for a man who was never to show his face at the location that day. Instead, we were invited inside, where I recall huddling over a space heater for a few hours. My mother, in my opinion being very idealistic at the time, took me from the garage, and we went to visit the State Aquarium (a believe this was meant to be a diversion from the real reason for the trip). Sadly, I do not recall a thing about the trip to the aquarium, though I can still see the gas station, the kerosene heater, and my mother's face quite clearly in my mind.
This is the first time that a man let me down.
I moved on to complete a few years of school, as a troubled child with many behavioral problems. My mother worked as much as she could, as a travel agent, which was a job she loved. I do not know if it was because of her occupation, or merely the fact that my mother loved to travel, but I recall many vacations, most of which were centered around my birthday. I look back fondly at these memories, and the quality time spent with the woman who made me the person I am today. Most vacations we drove to our end destination. These drives were filled with midnight conversations (it was my job to make sure Mommy didn't get tired while she was driving), of topics that I don't think anyone realized I understood or would remember, though they still linger in and out of my thoughts.
Pictures are the only thing that brings these memories to life for me any longer, and I wonder, have I tried to shut them out?
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