When you analyze your life’s
events, sometimes you begin to create time lines in sync with different topics.
When did the body pain start? When did the chronic physical pain start? So many
questions of ‘When did I get that symptom again’? My mental pain came first. I
was 3.
I say that, because it’s one of my first memories. I don’t
remember a whole lot of details other than I was short, and I’m pretty sure
there was a bulkiness to my pants. I either had on a cloth diaper and plastic cover,
or I just had a load in my pants.
It’s so crazy the little things
that stand out clear as day, and what things a little mind can perceive but my
first memory is of abandonment, and strangely enough it wasn’t even in a bad psychological
or lasting way.
I was 3; my mom is home with me, and daddy’s at work. He had one of those, like real jobs at the time. My mom
was a product of the 50’s; religious and healthy, and my dad came from prison, a
seasoned bank robber and criminal genius, except for the getting caught part.
He found God, my mom found a man, 7 years later I got a load in my pants.
So the day goes like this. My mom
says that after I take a nap, were going to the movies. WOW. The BIG TV fun
place! I just gotta take this nap. I gotta take this nap. I gotta take a nap. I
gotta go to sleep. I gotta shut my eyes and then were going to the movies.
Hippie go to sleep. Go take a nap. Yaaaaaaaaa.
So she finally gets me to go the
fuck to sleep, and I’m sure she does what every mom has ever done when the kid
finally goes to sleep….whatever the Hell she wants. Well, she went a few doors
down and was talking to a neighbor. No biggie, it’s a small apt complex and
this is the 70’s. What could possibly go wrong, right?
Well, I’m sure while my tiny little brain was sleeping, all
I could dream about is going to the BIG TV place, and I'm sure that nap didn’t last long
at all. Here’s where the memory is quite vivid. She’s gone. My mom is gone. I’m
all alone. I look everywhere. My mom is not in the house. This has never
happened before. My mom has never been gone. I’m 3. I’ve never been alone or
not remember seeing her; although I’m sure it happened a lot, like as a baby in
a crib, you cry, mom comes in. It’s funny how this vivid memory starts before I
even take the nap, in a way that would insinuate that my brain went to pre-record
when there was trauma, as if to concrete everything you did right up to that
moment.
I open the front door. I don’t see
anyone. I went from scared to thinking. SHE WENT TO THE MOVIES WITHOUT ME?! WHAT??
My mom, just up and left, and went to the movies, oh. em. gee. WOOOOW!! No no
no. I need to go find her, because I know she’s at the movies.
Let me just get in my ride right
quick. No sweat. I got my big wheel out front. It’s going down y’all. Oh Hell
no that bitch did NOT make me go to sleep so she can go to the movies. Wow. Ya,
I’m rollin now.
I got my big wheel. I’m pissed. I’m pedaling that little
red and yellow bitch down the side of a road, not a sidewalk. I’m on the side of a road,
trying not to ride down into the grass, and these big people in their big car-big wheels are just in my way. I’m going to that damn movie theater. I’m
getting a little tired from pedaling though. It’s a long way. “Ife gone eighty
two theven “blocks of stweet.”
A car stops, many cars slow down, people start yelling at
me, and freaking out. I’m going to the movies y’all!! “MY MOM LEFT AND WENT
TO THE MOVIES WITHOUT ME!!”
“STOP LAUGHING AT ME!” These people are straight yelling out
the window of their cars while slowly driving by, or stopping and trying to get out and talk to me, and I don’t know
what’s going on but I need to find my mom.
She’s At. The Movies. Without Me.
Ohhhh doggy, I was mad. I got tricked, to go to sleep, and
then she goes and leaves me? And these cars are in my way, and I am one
peddling fool trying to get around people.
“I know I gotta do some ‘flefts’ and some ‘flights’ and go
down dat way by over dare dat way and she at the moobie feeter!”
I’m sure there was everything from laughter to angry
yelling, to hysterical laughter.
Of all the times in a child’s life,
in a moment of opportunity, in the depth of the underbelly of the world, the
opposite of every mothers nightmare happened….a nice woman pretty much got me
in the car before any creeper jumped out and grabbed me, threw my big wheel in
the back seat, and drove a total of maybe 100 yards to the little apt complex
that had my mom and 3 other people all freaking out in the parking lot.
Oh look, there she is!
Aaaaaaaand oh, I’m in trouble. The look on her face went
from the happiest she’s ever been to see me; to the maddest I’ve ever seen her.
I was pretty confused considering she just got back from the movies without me.
What was she mad at me for?
“NO. I did NOT go to the movies! You were only asleep a half
an hour. I just walked next door! Do you know what could have happened to
you??!!”
I got the lecture of a lifetime. My mom was eternally grateful
to the nice woman. It only takes a second to turn around, but fortunately
someone was looking out and returned me. I wish I could say that was the last
time I wondered off, but man there was something really cool about the sound of
that train coming! That’s another story.
Ya know? I’m pretty fucking lucky to be alive actually. I’ll
have to remember to tease my mom about that next time we talk. “Hey remember
that time you went to the movies without me?” It’s sure to get a belly laugh.