Mental Meanderings

Anecdotes of Past

I met an interesting guy today and I feel like bloginating him because he got me thinking. I read his blog, beginning to end over a few hours while also hanging out in chat. I had a great chuckle at a number of comments and was so delighted by his writing that I couldn't resist sharing it with the handful of people I was chatting with. Who is this gifted writer? The Literary Penguin and his blog "Invalid Item" .

Anyway, it got me to thinking about anecdotes from my own life. I've known a number of people who've been able to successfully reproduce snippets of their past in humorous stories and blog entries. These entries were a joy to read and always managed to bring a smile to my lips. The man who goes by Penguin managed to keep me enthralled through his entire blog and after I write this entry I plan to return to his port and haunt his other works.

Ok, back on point, it got me searching my mind for events in my life that were utterly embarressing, humiliating, or fun and happy. But why does putting the pressure on to remember such things inevitably lead to a blank wall. For some reason my past is and always has been difficult to recall.

I remember strangely apparently because most people remember in images. They can bring pictures to mind of events unfolding before them. Writers in general do this too, watching scenes play out in their head. Others do it when they read etc. But me? I'm odd. Very odd. I don't see with my mind's eye. I sense. I can't bring images to my mind but I hve more of a spirital knowing of the way things are. Sometimes it makes my memories tainted with things that aren't. In a way perhaps that is where some of my imagination comes together because I can so easily slip things that aren't into reality through my sense of being and sense of remembering.

One of my sensed memories is the loss of my first tooth. I remember being six and walking across the top oval/courts of my school with my oldest sister Tracy. I'm not sure where we had been, obviously too the shop because I was eating an icecream cone but over that road also leads to the library so it's possible we had been there. She was walking me to school.

Ok this is where I start wondering if this memory is flawed because I can't understand WHY she'd be walking me to school in the middle of the day while I ate an icecream. Nevermind, who ever said that memories had to make sense, they're like dreams, they're the past... So I was walking with her, I was about six and I was heading to school when I bit into this icecream and my tooth came out. I lost the tooth in the icecream and was very freaked out and excited at the same time.

*sighs* Alas, I have no sense of humor. I fail to make my anecdotes funny. Surely there is some way that could have been twisted to be comic. Nope, somewhere along the gestation of my life my funny bone failed to develop.

Lets try another. *ponders and starts sifting through sensed memories* First kiss. *chuckles* Do you remember being 11? I remember it fondly as it is one of my most cherished ages in life. I was in year six and all the boys adored me. Wow, now that was a memory. No wonder I loved being 11. Thankfully I loved all the boys too but one special one was my darling and I'll remember him fondly always.

Laurie, was a sweetheart and I've often considered attempting to chase him up and see what he's done with his life. I haven't seen him since I was 12 which is more than ten years ago now. Perhaps it's time for a primary school reunion. How does one set something like that up? Anyway, Laurie and I would often play together during and after school. HEY!! Not like that you pedophilic freaks!! We were kids.

Back in those days kids playing involved the freedom to roam around the neighbourhood between 3 and dinnertime. We fit so much fun and adventure into those 3 hours. I had a lot of friends but Laurie and I got together frequently and had a favorite hang out in the bushland beside the oval just across from my house. My living room window could technically look out on the tree's but it was too dense to be able to distinguish anyone in there.

Part of the trees had grown together we made use of the cubby house that had been moulded by others before us and make it out hide out. I remember having a chuckle with Laurie one time over finding underwear strewn about the place one time we visited. There were other guys and girls we hung out with as well and we'd over gather there for hide and seek and chasey. It was a lot of fun to tear through the paths we knew by heart. We never got lost, eleven year old instincts and the comfortable safe feeling of knowing the world was a great place to live kept us in joyful obliviousness.

It's strange how those sorts of impressions are so crystal clear and yet the actual memory of a first kiss happening is a blurr of uncertainty. I have this connection to that place and to Laurie and I'm pretty sure at the time were we sitting on a branch in the cubby. I look back thinking how adorably sweet we were. I have crushes over that memory but I'm sure many of us reflect fondly on puppy love.

When I was in primary school boys were all darlings and could do no wrong. It's when they grow up into men the problems begin. I hope my baby boy never grows into a man. I want him to remain good, and true and the beautiful boy he is now.

Other memories of those days that are less fond are the girls I knew. For some reason girls seem to be capable of back stabbing bitchery from the day they are born. Friendships to those girls were a barter tool and one of the things my daughter got the biggest backlash about when she first started school was the "You're not my friend anymore" comment. OMG I hit the roof when I first heard her use that. Ripped into her sweet little 5-yo heart about it but I assure you she has NEVER bartered friendship to get her own way since. Of course, I look forward to the "I hate you", "I wish you were dead", and the ever loved "I don't love you anymore" she'll undoubtably bombard me with in the years to come. I've already faced and cried over "I don't want to live with you I want to live with Daddy."

Wow, tangent again. lol Well that's me, deal with it. *grins* Back to school girls. I had my friends, some were nice, most of the girls I was friends with had been outcast by the popular crowd and so was I. A recurring event in my life was to get outcast by the popular crowd in school. Mostly I suspect because I refused to conform to what they wanted or remain shadowed by them. Of course that didn't stop the girls calling me a 'sheep'. No idea where they got that idea from since while I might have been willing to hang with them I certainly didn't follow their guidelines which is why I believe they got pissed off to begin with.

It was the same in primary school. I was bright and bubbly. Had lots of friends and there were squabbles between the various social structures but I had my in with all of them. I really loved primary school, I wonder why high school was so different. I wonder when the sociaphobe gene kicked in. My mother tells me I was reclusive from day one and perhaps it's because the kids I knew in primary school had years of history growing up together but I remember being liked and popular. The only other time I've experienced that since primary school is online in Second Life, and occassionally when I can suppress the fear that people secretly hate me and laugh behind my back I feel it here in WDC too.

So, I guess I better pull off the walk down memory lane while I can. Alas, I fail to be funny with my anecdotes. I guess I'm just not a comedy writer. But I hope you managed to stomach that drivel. In future I'll have to regal you with my more interesting adult life. Perhaps a few Second Life memories. Those are more fond ones that involve fun and games and a few tears too.