I am attempting to write more often, to open up my creative side....with the goal of eventually doing some professional writing. I would like to take a creative writing class, but as I am currently working two jobs and going to grad school I am a little short on time for that.
In the meantime I have borrowed a list of writing prompts from Bryn Donovan's blog at
http://www.bryndonovan.com/2016/07/05/100-prompts-for-writing-about-yourself/
......and tonight will start with the first.
Describe one of your earliest childhood memories
Well this is one that I am not sure I should start with, mostly because it's honestly not a very nice one.
My dad passed away very suddenly last year, and while I will always love him because he is my father, I will always have the results of his hair-trigger temper as my earliest memory.
We were in our small kitchen of our 1970's-era middle-class brick home - just my mom, my dad, and me. There were five kids in the family at the time but I don't know where the remaining four were at. I remember there being an abundance of brown and orange and cream colors, a linoleum floor with a brown and/or orange flowery pattern on it. Dark-colored cabinets surrounded me on three sides of that room, with an opening to a small hallway leading to a family room on the fourth side. I was probably around three or four years old at the time and was quite tiny so it seemed like the cabinets were high above me. It must have been late evening, with only bright, yellowish, fluorescent lighting brightening the kitchen. I remember standing in the middle of the small area, a few feet away from my father, fascinated by the showers of Cheerios that were raining down from the ceiling as my father screamed at my frightened, crying mother. He violently threw what seemed like multiple cereal boxes into the light panels above our heads with each angry outburst. The odd thing is I don't recall being scared, and I don't recall why he was angry. I was just fixated on the cereal pieces skittering and rolling around and gathering into small clusters. I still wonder, today, if this was because I didn't think my dad would really hurt me or if I was so used to his temper, even at this young age, that I didn't think it out of the ordinary for him to behave in this manner. I remember him demanding that my mom clean up the mess right before he stormed out of the room, and then the memory fades. I maybe remember little parts of helping my mom pick up all of the Cheerios, but because I've replayed this in my mind a few times it's hard to remember whether this part is something I imagined or really happened.
Now that my dad is gone I regret so much of our relationship, but I am also vividly aware that most of the issues in our relationship stemmed from his inability to deal with certain situations in a productive, adult manner. He preferred to use bullying and threats to accomplish what were usually very selfish actions, even though he is known in the community and his church for his service. He once told me that he would "do anything to preserve my reputation and my name", when some dirty secrets about our family escaped the confines of the family secret vault.
I wish that we could have been closer, but wishing doesn't change anything about our tenuous relationship and his denial, until very recently, that he was abusive to his children. Even though he told me that he regretted some of the things that he did as a parent, he never openly apologized for being specifically abusive, or accusing me of lying about a certain amount of abuse, even though he finally admitted to its occurrence a few years ago. I don't say this to bad mouth my father, because I know that in his later years he really was kind to my mother and became a much gentler person, and he really did have many good qualities. But these are truths that can not be erased from history or from my memory. I guess that's the lesson here. We can try to make up for our wrongs but certain actions will do permanent damage that can not be completely erased, no matter how much time has passed or how much good you do afterward. This becomes a strong message to try to make sure your children always know you will have their back, no matter what kind of mistakes you might make. Make sure your kids know that they come first - before your peers and friends, before your imagined reputation, and before the leaders of your church. Even when they are grown and have children of their own. Adult children still want their parents' love, especially when the earlier years were just so....muddy. Make sure they know that their well-being is your number one concern, and that is it how they want their own well-being to be - not how you want their well-being to be - that should be the reason you live. I am trying, every day, to make sure that my older teen knows that I love her unconditionally, despite what demons she grapples with, what she does with herself, whom she loves, or what church she attends. No matter what, I will always have her back. Even if they are not the same decisions I would make for her, I will always support her own decisions. And even though I am sure I have made some big parenting mistakes myself I hope that our bond is an improvement over the one I had with my father. Most importantly, I hope her first memory of her childhood is a happy one instead of a sad one.
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