Back_in_the_Day

Back in the Day When I Was Young... Thank God I’m Not a Kid Anymore D’Angelo Burgin PSY 202 Professor Framan May 10, 2011 Back in the Day When I Was Young... Thank God I’m Not a Kid Anymore As a child I, like most children thought that life was easy and Mom and Dad were infallible. All problems can be solved with a bowl of ice cream or a piece of my favorite candy. Scrapes and bruises would heal from a gentle kiss from Mom or Dad. I knew that family was as constant as the moon in the night sky. Mankind's ageless teacher; time, had many lessons in store for my “tabula rasa.” (Witt & Mossler, 2010, 2.1) Through the events of my life, the theories of cognitive development weren’t realized as I was going through them but, as I relate these stories and reflect on how I was influenced, I now know that I am very much like the rest of mankind. Only with a more personal touch to it. The most challenging part of growing up is learning that Mom and Dad make mistakes. My first exposure to my dad’s imperfection was found shattered all over our dining room floor. The day prior, I observed the dismantling of my family through an opaque barricade. Not knowing what was truly going on, I dismissed the feud between my parents as a storm that would soon blow over. The next morning, my brothers and I woke up, descended the stairs and headed for the kitchen to, most likely, have some cereal only to be met by a mine field of broken wedding china. It was sprawled across the floor of the room adjoining our kitchen. The mistake, in my five year old mind, was the broken dishes. Through maturation and cognitive development, the way I processed the information of shattered remnants of my parents marriage my father’s mistake was leaving his family. (Witt & Mossler, 2010, 1.2) I learned of my mother’s fault making ability on what seemed to be a normal day. It struck me strange that my mom would extend an invitation for me to go to a friend’s house, who I knew that she didn’t care for but, I eagerly accepted. After playing and listening to music for a while, I was beckoned to my friend’s front door to find, not my mother but, a friend of hers who told me that I needed to go with her. A little confused as to why my mom hadn’t come to retrieve me, I learned that we were going to the hospital where my mom had been taken due to an overdose. With this information permanently imbedded into to my being I still have issues with having a completely open relationship with her for fear of pushing her too far. I also realize that the mistake she made was not the overdose rather, her attempt to leave my brothers and me, at age 13, motherless. When ever I was having a bad day, I knew that getting a Chico-Stick or a Daiquiri Ice ice-cream cone would make me feel better. I grew up in a house with three older brothers who were as different as the directions of the wind. I would complete the fourth cardinal direction in my contrast to my brothers. My eldest brother was a consummate athlete, the next oldest proved to be an aimless genius, while my youngest brother could be likened to Thomas Edison; always contriving some sort of invention. Then there was me, the “baby.” Not a care in the world just a deep love of music and always contemplative. I never felt like I fit in with my brothers and I seldom spent much time with them outside of mealtime and the weekend marathon of cartoons, wrestling and Kung Fu Theater. Being the youngest subjected me to the tortures of my three older brothers teasing, taking my toys and breaking them or the run of the mill battles that siblings grow through. My feelings of being misplaced may be due to me being five years younger than my youngest brother. Prior to my mom’s infamous trip to the hospital, she tried to make me feel special even if it meant taking me to breakfast or a trip to the ice cream shop. These events have always stood out to me when I force myself to remember the good times from my childhood. The trials of growing up didn’t come without battle scars and the “healing kiss” from a parent couldn’t nor wouldn’t make the pain go away. As far back as I can remember I have always known that my parents had five children; my three brothers, a sister who had passed from sudden infant death syndrome and myself. I am sure that the loss had a more traumatic impact on my brothers but it is the empathy of the loss that haunts me. That and deep question of what it would be like to have a sister, how would my family dynamics have differed, how would my brothers relationships with women have been different' A more disturbing question is would I be here if the sister I never knew had lived. I have never really spoken with my parents about her. Her passing is a wound that will have to heal with the salve of time. Coping with the loss of someone I never knew wasn’t as painful as losing my best friend. It wasn’t so much a physical loss but an emotion loss. For five years, I had shared a room with my eldest brother. When he had time, he taught me things like counting to 100 the year before I started school. He also gave me a life lesson in the form of a question. One day while he was making me breakfast, he told me to go make up our bed. Within five minutes of this direction I was back at his side watching him prepare our breakfast when he asked me if I had done what he had told me I said, “yes”. Then the innocent but most, upon later reflection, profound question of “ did you do your best” was posed. That is just one of the life lessons and one of the fondest memories of my eldest brother. When my mom remarried in 1985, I lost the ability to have that type of interaction with him due to the fact that she and her new husband moved to Okinawa, Japan. My other two brothers and I moved in with my grandmother but my best friend moved in with one of my maternal uncles. Somethings, I learned, cannot be healed with a kiss. We must live and learn. Listening to John Legend’s song “It Don’t Have To Change” takes me back to Christmas’ on Hillside, in the first home I remember living in. That was the place where all of my aunt’s and uncle’s would come with their kids in tow and spend holidays. My grandmother would also make the trek from, what then seemed like a foreign land. After the fall of my parents marriage the holidays a were more joyous time. These visits were my past, present and should have been a part of my future.They were the only family reunions I attended on my mom’s side, wrapped up in Thanksgiving and Christmas. It was a time of unadulterated childhood games of hide and seek and becoming rooted in who I was and where I came from through my familial relations. It as a time when everything in the world was as right as right could be. a time to connect with an extension of me through blood relations. It was a time when I felt like the holidays were special and more than the Hallmark celebrations of today. Like the faint remnants of a dream, that is the most vivid recollection of family unity that I have. I learned at a relatively young age the hard lesson that my parents were not perfect. Not only were they not perfect but neither was I or anyone else that lives. I found that all perils are an opportunity to learn from and that the good times were a time to reflect upon and revere. The scars of a shattered family and broken home were not wounds that would be healed by a parent’s loving kiss. By disclosing my pains and knowing that my past does not dictate the outcome of my future, I become a whole person. Through the pain of loss and disappointments, scrapes and bruises, relocations and all of the nuances that life has to offer; I know that each of us has a story to tell of our experiences as written on that once tabula rasa. References Witt, G. A., & Mossler, R. A. (2010). Adult development and life assessment. Retrieved from https://content.ashford.edu/AUPSY202.2.1 Witt, G. A., & Mossler, R. A. (2010). Adult development and life assessment. Retrieved from https://content.ashford.edu/AUPSY202.1.2