this was before...and once again

“Bye Daddy!” Cara cheerfully called out as her father drove away. “I will miss my Daddy,” she added in the same tone, as she and her sister climbed with me up the steps of our apartment. “I live with my Daddy and with my Mommy. I have two houses now.” I felt a pang as I listened to her. This was not the life I had intended my children to have to contend with, and yet I had made all the choices. As we walked in the door and slipped into our now typical routine, I pondered for a minute how we had come to this place. Could I retrace the steps and somehow come to a better understanding? Would remembering my life from the beginning help me to make sense of it all? If nothing else, would it help me to better acquaint myself with who I am? Perhaps the secret to finding oneself is being able to, for a concentrated moment, take the time to look back over the past with the perspective of the present and watch the pieces as they came together.

My earliest memories are disjointed segments and in the form of dream images, still fuzzy and blurred around the edges. There are visions of front yards, with the view of the gates and the streets they each had. A remember broken plastic rulers, a particle board Cookie Monster puzzle, and a yellow terry cloth bathing suit. The sensation of being tangled in a mosquito net, while falling out of bed, or sticky cool aloe Vera being smoothed on to soothe sunburned skinned. I can close my eyes and once again be standing beside my parents’ bed as my mother holds ice to my ear lobe, in preparation for my first ear piercing; or standing next to her bed to wake her after another bad dream. There is that remembered idolization I felt watching “Wonder Woman” at the neighbors’ house. The abandon of running up the driveway, playing nearly naked in the rain, as drops of water ran into my eyes and mouth. How it felt to proudly ride my bicycle down a dirty road, without training wheels for the first time. My cheek on the cool marble floor, as I lay face to face with my soul-friend dog, Crystal; my fingers gently scratching her ears, as her warm tongue licked my nose. Rough bark under my feet and between gripping toes, as I fearlessly climbed to the top of a tree. The pictures parade past my mind’s eye, like scenes from a movie – in multiple dimensions. Any one, I could zoom in on and enlarge. Where then should I begin?