I was given the number 10...so here we go….Ten things you probably don’t know about me :-) 1. The sweetest compliment I have ever received in my life is when someone used the word adorable to describe me. No one ever had before….and hasn’t since. My soul sparkled so brightly and still does when I think of it. 2. I had some unique body issues while growing up…..I’ll include 3 in this section….and told my Mom on several occasions that I must be an alien to which she would reply “God just gives some people ‘extras” to make them more special.” I had two sets of bottom teeth…an extra six teeth behind my bottom front teeth that were eventually pulled out but not before leaving the rest of my teeth quite crooked from the overcrowding that had been done. Smiling seems like such a natural act…but not to someone who hid their mouth with their hand when they laughed or smiled and avoided the mirror for so very long. I was splay footed when I was a child. Being splay footed is the opposite of being pigeon-toed. When I was around 7 yrs old, my Father and the doctor who wanted to have me wear a special brace on my feet while I slept to “correct” the “problem” were overruled by my Mother . She vehemently opposed the shoes with a steel bar between them to keep my feet straight while I slept. She told them she would help me herself even with the threats from my Father that if it didn’t work he was going to have me wear the brace and that was that. My Mom would lay out her measuring tape on the living room floor in a straight line and have me “walk the line” back and forth… over and over…to “train” my feet. We did it almost every day for weeks…and then months. When I could walk without being splayed out she had me put a book on my head and continue with the “practicing” for about another month to “fine tune” my gait and teach me to stand up straight. I grew tall quite young and at that age I was always trying to make myself smaller by slouching. In my mind I thought trying to be shorter would make me “fit in” better with the rest of the people in my world….who weren’t Amazon’s like me. I grew to be quite tall very early in my life and I found myself in a doctor’s office again about the constant pain in my legs when I was 9. I was already 5’7 at 9 years old and I remember the look on my Mom’s face when the doctor told her that the pain was caused by the fact that my bones were growing faster than my muscles and that was where the pain was originating from. When she asked if my muscles would ever catch up, the doctor’s reply was a not so reassuring, “We can hope so.” No….my muscles never did catch up. That was a fact that left me jealous of all of my friends who could do a split so easily. Even with the hours I spent alone in my room practicing the ‘flat to the floor” split all of my friends were able to do I would never achieve the same result. Mama soothed those “I’m just a freak” tears by pointing out that even though I couldn’t do a split I excelled in sports, etc. and got her baby girl back to being focused to being the best I could be at what I COULD do. 3. I have loved long skirts, maxi dresses and long gowns my entire life. Being 6 feet tall, feeling feminine at times could be a challenge, but when I have a long skirt or maxi dress on I feel deliciously “girly”. I love wearing them….love seeing them on other women….and love the sweet feeling of ultra femininity that always comes over me when I slip one on. 4. I was the tallest person in my family for over 40 decades. Much taller….than everyone. My Mom was 5’2...my sis is 5’2...my brothers were 5’6 and 5’8 and my father was 5’6 ½. Aunts, Uncles, Cousins….all similar heights to my core family. I was 5’7 at 9 yrs old and grew to 5’10 by the time I was 11 and then on to my current 6 feet. I learned to love being tall….except for always having to be in the back row with all the boys for class pictures in elementary school since they arranged us by height….no, never liked that. 5. When I was 20 and 4 months pregnant with my daughter I hitchhiked from Las Vegas, Nevada to Mississippi during an April cold snap with a blanket, sleeping bag and my backpack. 3 days in….no money left….it had started to snow a little….and an angel…in a white pickup truck….picked us up. The elderly gentleman in a white cap delivered me a message of hope, soft words of wisdom to me and stern “warnings” for the man with me at the time….who he made ride in the bed of the truck and not in the cab with the two of us. When he came back to the truck after “having” to make a stop before letting us off where his trek ended….he handed me a huge bag of freshly cooked HOT food and placed money in my other hand. His words and the iridescence of his eyes as he spoke at that moment were only for me and I will never share them with anyone….they were answers to questions I had never spoke aloud. I knew there was something “different” about him. That thought was confirmed within a few minutes of his driving away from where we stood on the side of a bare rural highway. You could see clearly for miles as it was flatland and there were very few trees. He had opened a wooden ranch style gate at the edge of the field across from us, closed the gate and proceeded to drive across the field….where there was no “road”…just dirt. We reached down to pick up our bags to walk down the on ramp back to the highway…straightened up, turned to look back at the kind stranger driving away….and there was nothing. It had only been a minute and there was no truck, no stranger and no explanation….but none was needed. 6. My Father submitted copies of my poetry/writing to a recruiter for Hallmark cards when I was 15, agreed to a meeting between the three of us when the recruiter called and I was offered a position as a “Contributing Jr. Writer”. I turned down the position stating “I write for myself, the people I love and I don’t want to share my writing with strangers” in all my misplaced “creative principle” 15 yr. old head. My father was so disappointed in me he didn’t speak to me for two weeks. At that time, he and I lived alone in California and it was a good thing I relish quiet alone time as our house was very silent for those two weeks. Sheesh….yes, I had the “What the hell were you thinking?” moment years later when I thought of the opportunity I declined. Sigh…. 7. I was the ultimate Tomboy while growing up. My neighborhood had two girls in it….myself and my best friend. The rest of the child population in my neighborhood consisted of around 20 boys. I learned to be “one of the guys” purely out of not wanting to be left out on the sidelines. I climbed trees, built tree forts, dug tunnels, rode mini-bikes, had a racer banana seat bike instead of a “girly” bicycle, played soldier in the lumberyard and learned to never cry when the inevitable injury would occur. Never….ever….cry. Crying would have knocked me right out of being able to “play” with the boys by being “a whiny girl”. I learned to pick gravel out of my skinned hands, knees, legs and arms and just let the blood dry like the boys did instead of “running home to mommy” for a bandage. I learned how to hide the 3 inch gash in my leg from climbing over the aluminum siding fence at the lumberyard, the horrible burn from the pipe on the mini-bike I had wiped out on, mildly sprained ankles and the occasional sprained fingers or wrist. I was like a “Mission Impossible” operative wrapping my ankle, treating the burn and the gash with what I could find in the bathroom medicine cabinet and covering the “evidence” with a plethora of Band-Aids. My mother, being the pretty savvy woman she was, knew that if she heard the bathroom door lock when I took a bath that it was time to check for injuries. I became very adept at sliding the lock as quietly as I could until my injuries started to heal. Sometimes….Mama’s sixth sense won out and I would get a loving mini-lecture with her discovery of my injury but then get to sink into the relief of her gentle, loving care of my wounds without losing any of the “she’s cool for a girl” status in front of the boys. 8. I was voted Funniest Girl or Class Clown-Female every year in school starting in elementary school. That “role” started early as there were only two “Fat girls” in my elementary school and I was one of them. I learned early that if I could make people laugh or turn their insults around with a funny comment that I wouldn’t get picked on….as much. Unfortunately, that also created a problem with the nuns who were my teachers and I made many a trip to the Mother Superior’s office for “disrupting” the class. That title….that “role”…..and my own obsession with getting straight-A’s….made me the “Smart, funny girl” that the popular group would ask for homework help with instead of just one of the “Fat Girls”. Humor has been a very important thread in my life. 9. This has been a year of ripping off bandages that were wound so tightly around my soul and putting the lost puzzle pieces of myself back where they belong. I missed me. 10. I am an adoptee….and a birth mother…and I am no longer bound by the worry of what people may think of me when I chose to live my truth concerning the latter…just this year. The beautiful woman that I am the birth mother to was gracious enough to allow me and my daughter (her sister) into her life 3 years ago and I received the gift of spending time with her this year. She is now 25.
Posted on: Mon, 18 Nov 2013 03:44:08 +0000
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