Who am I kidding? I'm not over all those little ugly memories from my childhood. I would rather not have had that childhood. Give me another one. I don't think you can go back and respond differently to the negative things that happened when you were a child. You can only find a way to distance yourself. I hope I find that way. Forgetting might help. My husband pointed out that all the things that happened to us, yucky as some of them were, eventually led us to each other. And we certainly, and for surely, didn't want to miss out on that. I can agree with the conclusion but somehow it doesn't quite take the acrid taste of the memories out of my mouth. Why bother looking back? It's not like there is any violence or abuse to deal with. It was just . . . embarrassing. Trying to draw meaning and profundity from the mediocrity that was my growing up in the sixties and seventies is fruitless. It's not until now, when I'm doing a history unit on the sixties with my daughter, do I feel the fullness of our numbing disassociation with that decade in the home I grew up in. I can't even claim participation in that huge social upheaval. Not that my father would have let me, anyway.
I can appreciate having fond memories of childhood. I rather envy people who do. In fact, like most 
things in our culture, the happier we are, the prettier we are, the more success we can lay claim to throughout our lives, the more acceptable we seem. I often don't feel very acceptable. And it goes all the way back. Yuck! I'm stepping around the same dog-poopy mess I used to dwell on all the time. I don't think reviewing childhood memories is doing me one bit of good. An irony as I used to think I could straighten myself out if I could just find the right memories and . . . I'm not sure what I'd do with the right memory but somehow it seemed relevant. I accidentally opened a door into the fetid musty smell of old times and it is just too much to take. I would just as soon focus on today and be done with it.
What was that? Say that again. "I would just as soon focus on today and be done with it." My, my. I said that, didn't I? Focus on today. That's nice to hear. Is that how you let go of the past? Focus on today. Prefer now to the thing that is gone and part of the past.
It's a start. I miss my mother. I've missed her since she died eighteen years ago. Why do I hold onto her so much? Do I miss her because she was the anchor that made my otherwise dull and mediocre existence meaningful? Hmmm. I wonder if there is something about that. She is the bright part of my childhood. She was the one person who accepted me, chubby, naive, stumbling, pale skinned, red haired, and earnest, though I was, she loved me anyway. It's hard to give up that need for someone like that, especially when they die. When they die and they are the only one to give you that support, the bottom opens up and you fall. I've been falling a long time.
I now have two other people who love me unquestioningly. They have slowed my fall by quite a bit. In fact, I don't really think about my mom all that much anymore. And yet, in light of my childhood memories, I feel that loss again. I think that my biggest challenge will be to create in myself the sort of acceptance and support I got from her; that my husband and daughter give to me now. Ah, that's hard to do sometimes. I've tasted it occasionally in the last few months. It's empowering. I guess it's possible. I guess it all comes down to loving yourself. Man! So simple . . . so challenging.
