Remember when our problems were as simple as whether or not we got to eat dinner that night? Remember when we'd spend hours looking for our parents, trying to figure out whose house they were at, and anticipating how drunk they would be when we found them? Remember when they'd disappear into one of their rooms for a while, and we knew all along what was going on? Remember the smell? I've spent years trying to detatch that smell from those feelings and I'm not sure I ever will.
Remember the fights? Our parents fighting with each other, with their stupid friends - like great big teenagers, they fought and re-lived their high school mentalities while we took care of our siblings.
Remember how we'd meet in the library after school - we'd play games, read, and just generally act like we were normal like the rest of the kids there? I guess we were normal then, but I guess we knew some things they didn't.
Remember when our problems were simpler? When the only people we loved were our friends and our families, and that would never go away?
Remember when our problems were so real? Real like the hunger, real like the pain we watched our fathers endure, and real like the holes in our shoes?
I miss that, I miss the materialism of our problems, the tactile experience of them, before they were tucked away in our heads and left to gestate and bloom, before we learned that love and trust were things we could give away.
Back when we thought getting hurt meant a scraped knee.
Our problems were more dire, then. Our problems were worse, our lives were worse, but in a way they were so much easier. our problems all had a solution.
We never had a real childhood, but looking back on it, these times were about as easy as we were going to have it.
I never thought I'd miss Lucie Park.
1 comment:
Those days when you lived up on Weston. You guys had it rough, and while I never really got the full of it, I've seen a lot; I've heard stories from Chris.
Of course, he still lives there. He's lived in about five houses within a five minute walking perimeter, but he's still there, and I'll bet a lot of that stuff still has real application for him. I've seen bits of the neighborhood politics and household squabbles; he lives it. But at least he can walk away now, at his age.
In my case, I know I live a happier life today than I have live at an endless number of previous points in my childhood. There were times where I seriously hurt people to protect myself, and I felt no remorse.
Now I only have to deal with the insanity and mind games. Psychoanalyzing myself and assessing my various failures and insecurities every time I have a panic attack that I can't explain... it's not easy. But I guess at least I've never loved.
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