Tags
blogging101, Creative Writing, Family, Journaling, Memories & Reflections, Writing 101, Writing Prompts
I’ve been reading some of the responses to the Word Press Daily Prompt today about remembering your first crush. The ones I’ve read have been fun. I normally don’t warm up to these prompts, but this one I did because I know exactly when and who it was. But it’s not really the “crush” that made it so memorable. It was what happened in the aftermath.
* * * * *
It was summer of 1961 and I had just turned 10. We had a rare treat that June. My mother’s favorite brother Francis, known by his family and friends as Hilligan (no clue…), came to visit us in Ohio. We’d not seen them since I was six. We had traveled to Great Falls, Montana via Florence, Oregon (where I nearly drowned at Devil’s Elbow State Park) to spend a week with them. That was actually the first time I’d ever met my cousins, Jim, Judy, and Jeanie.
We were all waiting impatiently when they pulled up in front of the house. As they climbed out of the car my eyes were all for the tall, curly-haired blonde teenager unfolding himself from the back seat. Jimmy wasn’t the little kid I remembered anymore. He was in junior high school and he played football. It was good to see Judy and Jeanie, but my eyes were only for Jimmy — and, apparently so was my heart.
It was a terrific week. I’d followed him around like a second shadow and hung on every word he said. My guess is he couldn’t help but be flattered. First puppy love must have been fun for him, though I expect he’d had his fair share of girls interested in him by then. The week passed so fast and soon it was time for them to leave.
The morning they left I was hiding by the gate that led to the backyard. Even at that young age I HATED saying goodbye to people I might never see again. I remember that I was crying by the rosebush. Suddenly here came Jimmy bounding around the house looking for me to come and say goodbye to everyone. When he saw I’d been crying, he bent down and gave me a kiss. Now I seriously doubt it was on the lips. My memory of that moment is not real clear. I do remember he dragged me around the house then so everyone could give me a hug. It was a very tearful goodbye. Not just for me. My mom missed her brother something fierce.
What happened a couple days later has never stopped reverberating in my head and I often times wonder if it created a permanent writer’s block for me. I’ve mentioned on here that I started journaling at a young age. I also wrote stories. And that kiss, as innocent as it was, begged a story! So I wrote it. Or at least started it. I remember being very shy about what I wrote, so I usually stuck my dairy under my pillow. It was our job to make our own beds or at least help, so I’d always know when it was time to hide it for the day.
That morning I had folded up the paper I’d been writing the story on, stuck it inside the dairy, and gone off to school. When I came home my mother was waiting. I could tell by the look on her face that I was in trouble for something. She pulled a folded-up sheet of paper out of her apron pocket and held it up in front of me. My heart sank. She had decided to go ahead and change the beds that day and found not only my dairy, but my story about “the kiss” as well.
Mom had a tirade that day. She wadded that paper up and shook it under my nose saying I was NEVER to write anything like that again.
Now for the life of me I cannot fathom what a very sheltered just-turned-10-year-old girl could have written about that kiss that would cause such an uproar. Girls of that age didn’t know NEARLY as much then as they do now. And we never talked about it after that. She crammed it back in her pocket and I have no clue what she ever did with it.
So in the end my first crush was actually “crushed” by my mom. And to this day I find myself wondering how much her reaction to that little story helped to create that inner critic that lurks the hallways of my mind just waiting to find folded pieces of paper to wad up and trash! Damn! That must have been some hot story!!! 
* * * * *
Daily Prompt: First Crush
Who was your first childhood crush? What would you say to that person if you saw him/her again?
Impromptu Promptlings 
Great story – even though it wasn’t much fun at the time. My guess is that what your mum read flicked a switch in her brain, reminding her of something vaguely iffy in her own youth, and she read into it more than was there.
This is a much better post than the one I started but didn’t finish for that prompt. Maybe I’ll attempt to do it properly at a later stage, or maybe I no longer find it interesting enough…
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thanks, my dear. I really only did it because that incident has always stuck in my mind. I started taking the Writing 101 class. It starts today. Going to Maryland in the middle of it to meet Lydia Rose. Not sure how I’m going to work that! All I’ll have is my tablet.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I’ve just started that class too!
Maybe you could cheat and work the assignments into Haikus while you’re away? At least it would show commitment. Because I had other ideas in my head when I woke this morning, I was tempted to use this for today’s assignment:
“I write because I
can and because I cannot
not write and be well”
I’m glad I changed my mind. It would have been bad to start the course with such silliness..
LikeLike
Mothers and Daughters, deep inside some Mothers they take out on their children, their deep down feelings. I cannot speak for your Mother, but mine was the resentment the Son she gave birth to before me died and then I was Born, not a Boy but a Girl, she never forgave me. My first crush, the boy next door part German, difficult because this was growing up after the War and memories of Second World War still strong in UK. My Mother did all she could to stop our friendship and she did, but we were “Blood Brothers” and I still have a deep down feeling for him.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I remember that story. I think my problem with mom in this instance was that I was too young to think of alternatives to the idea that I just was a crappy writer! Took me years to figure out what I thought was actually going through her mind – like 30 years! But there was no excuse for how your mother treated you, my dear. Or how your sister continues to treat you… Just my opinion…
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thank you.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Good story. Very good and very well written. But, sad story as well. I think combined with your last statement in comments about your mother’s possible motivation would make for an even better story. Really really good work, Calen and I’m sure it was work. http://judydykstrabrown.com/2015/09/05/crushed/
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thanks, Judy. That wasn’t so bad. Been over that one with a counselor a time or two. Off to read your… Oh! I think I already read your “Crush” piece. I’ll have to check. Night!
LikeLike
First, I just have to tell you that picture at top… so touched my heart! I fell in love with it, and *sigh* thank you for putting it in.
What a lovely story, and a cherished experience. I know about writing stories back then about crushes, and such. I am not certain what my mother would have thought were she to have read them, though, I honestly don’t recall anything particularly ‘racy’ about what I wrote. Had it been otherwise, I might also be overly critical of writing certain things. Perhaps, I should be, but I tend to let whatever come out of the pen, stay on the paper.
Personal experiences, like what you said thought might be at the root of your mother’s reaction, unfortunately leave us scarred in a different way. That is sad. Censorship in any manner has always been something I’ve been against.
But, the upside of these situations, and being able to post about them here, is that you may actually be able to move on from censoring yourself.
{{{Calen}}}
LikeLiked by 1 person
I’m with you. I don’t think we should censor what comes out when we write. We have to be cognizant of where to use it appropriately, but everything we write comes from a truth — or a lie — within us that needs to be told. I figured with the manuscript for Glencara’s Bane I have moved beyond that block if it was ever there. Not editing it? That’s just pure cussed laziness! 😀
LikeLiked by 1 person
A thought here: you are sounding more positive about getting your thoughts out there. Feeling that it’s the only way; no need to censor yourself. What helps you to get into this head space? Write that down, and when you’re working on something where you feel your censor come out, give it that cookie, so you can write unimpeded. Does that make sense?
I understand laziness. Got it big time these days, except for certain activities which have capture me and I don’t seem to mind that vice grip its got me in. This is the year of following my passions. Next year will be soon enough for me to get into that canoe and move forward on my path.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Yeah, I think I’m beyond the whole censoring thing. My journals are pretty raw. I tone things down when I use something on here. Actually making the move from our old church to the one we’ve been attending the last 12 years has been extremely helpful in that regard. Made me feel a whole lot freer. The journals I wrote in the years prior to that move were so condemning of myself. I’m not in that place anymore.
Btw, do you KNOW what next year is for you?
LikeLiked by 1 person
That’s good the move has helped. Just a change of venue can make all the difference in the world.
Next year is the major arcana 7, traditionally The Chariot. When I was using the Gaian Tarot, it was The Canoe, and the deck I’m currently using, it will be The Faery Stallion. All basically are about motion… moving forward. I see how that works out. lol
LikeLiked by 1 person
That sounds like you may be right about her reaction.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Yeah. And I think that’s one reason why when we asked her (often, I might add) about her childhood she always said there was nothing good to tell. She would never allow a conversation about it. But by the time I was an adult and figured it out she had her walls built up really high around her.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Too bad but normal for that age group in that time
LikeLiked by 1 person
I think you’re very right about the generation thing, Donna.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Sometimes I get the feeling that you carry a lot of baggage around, please forgive me for saying so.
I don’t think that this espisode created a writers blog for you. The past is the past, there is nothing you can change. However lingering there for too long can alter your future.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I do have some baggage I pack around for sure. No offense taken. I don’t think it’s any worse than anyone else’s. I had a great childhood and teenage years. There’s nothing I would change. I think my biggest problem is I went right from my parents’ home to my own home without going through the individuation process. There was no moving into an apartment with friends and figuring out who I was, learning to be responsible for myself. THAT in particular hinders me. I went from being responsible for my siblings (while mom worked) to being responsible for Lord Drollery and our family, but I never learned how to take care of myself.
Psychologist Carl Jung described individuation as the process by which the personal and collective unconscious are brought into consciousness to reveal one’s whole personality. In short: it is the process of becoming self-actualized.
Unfortunately thing of the past don’t always stay there. There are things that stick with you and alter who you are that you have trouble getting out from under. And it takes hard work and courage to put them in the past. I have a couple of those issues. One I wrote about in Trying (https://promptlings.wordpress.com/2015/02/28/trying/).
I wish it were that simple to let the past go. There are lots of us who struggle with it. I think you must have a gift for being able to move on through your life. You’re very single minded. I’d say you have been blessed in that.
LikeLiked by 2 people
I carried baggage around for a very long time. Anger against my parents and anger about my childhood before I moved in with my Grandma. I was an abused child, neglected and beaten by a violent, alcoholic Mother. There was anger and a lot of “not understanding”. I was weighing me down, if that makes sense. Then there was the fact that we couldn’t have children and I felt cheated by life. An almost deadly accident and other good stuff.
One day I started to realize that I had two choices, either I would linger in the past and ask the same questions over and over. Or..I would decide to let go.
I let go. I wrote letters, to my Mother and Father, to Mother Nature…I addressed everything that had angered me. I addressed sadness and tears. I never send the letters, I just wrote to get things of my chest. Some letters took weeks and month to finish. Then I burned them and set myself free.
I am a very happy little bugger since a lot of years 🙂
LikeLiked by 1 person
I’m sorry to hear your childhood was such a struggle, Bridget. Thank God you had a wonderful grandparent to go to. I admire that you were able to take the bull by the horns and steer yourself out of that place in your life. I think that ability has a lot to do with knowing who you are and how to take care of yourself. (And as I remember, you had some good lookin’ hunk named Luca who helped show you how to do that! :D) And your personality type lent itself to that as well.
I tried that for years, actually. The pulling myself up by my own bootstraps. I was wonder woman a lot of the time. Much to my detriment according to the grief counselor I saw when my mom died. While I was making sure everyone got what they needed, I was totally ignoring my own needs.
It would be so wonderful if everyone’s story were like yours. I meant what I said before, you’ve been really blessed to be able to work the process through like that.
But the truth is, everyone’s journey is different. And it’s in sharing and connecting and upholding that we help others across those great divides. I may never get where I feel would be a healthy place in my lifetime, but perhaps I can help others get there. I just think we all need to be a soft place for each other to land. (I know… I probably sound like a marshmallow, don’t I! 🙂 )
LikeLiked by 1 person
*Wondering how a Marshmallow sounds* 🙂 No, you sound like every other woman, who has juggled family, job, career, husband, kids and other stuff for many years.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Want you to know that pitching this back and forth with you made me think a lot about happiness vs. contentment. I’m going to try to tackle a post about that.
LikeLiked by 1 person
“The Station”
Tucked away in our subconscious is an idyllic vision.
We are traveling by train, out the windows,
we drink in the passing scenes of children
waving at a crossing,
cattle grazing on a distant hillside,
row upon row of corn and wheat,
flatlands and valleys,
mountains and rolling hillsides
and city skylines.
But uppermost in our minds is the final destination.
On a certain day, we will pull into the station.
Bands will be playing and flags waving.
Once we get there, our dreams will come true
and the pieces of our lives
will fit together like a completed jigsaw puzzle.
Restlessly we pace the aisles,
damning the minutes – waiting,
waiting, waiting for the station.
“When we reach the station, that will be it!”
We cry. “When I’m 18.” “When I buy a new 450sl Mercedes Benz!”
“When I put the last kid through college.”
“When I have paid off the mortgage!”
“When I get a promotion.” “When I reach retirement,
I shall live happily ever after!”
Sooner or later, we realize there is no station,
no one place to arrive.
The true joy of life is the trip.
The station is only a dream.
It constantly outdistances us.
“Relish the moment” is a good motto.
It isn’t the burdens of today that drive men mad.
It is the regrets over yesterday and the fear of tomorrow.
Regret and fear are twin thieves who rob us of today.
Regret is reality, after the facts.
So stop pacing the aisles and counting the miles.
Instead, climb more mountains, eat more ice cream,
go barefoot more often,
swim more rivers, watch more sunsets,laugh more, cry less.
Life must be lived as we go along.
The STATION will come soon enough.
by Robert J. Hastings
LikeLiked by 1 person
Beautiful poem. I’ve often joked with Lord Drollery that my inscription on my headstone should say: She was so busy regretting the past and fearing the future that she never learned how to live in the present…
LikeLiked by 1 person
I think your theory could be right on. Especial since in those days sexually abuse wouldn’t have been the first thing that came to anyones mind. I’m thinking you need to open up those wadded up pieces of paper in your mind and read them. Maybe that will help the inner critic see what a talent you have for writing and help you rather than trash you.
Oh and my first crush was Gene Smith in sixth grade. He let me carry his baseball mitt to practice after school.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Boy how I would love to know what was on that paper! I’ll get there, girlfriend. One of these days I’ll edit Glencara’s Bane, publish it as an ebook, and break the spell! 🙂 I see YOU were the one doing the caretaking, too! 😀
LikeLike
That’s what I was wondering. Her impulse was to protect you and you experienced it as her crushing you. I think she would do it differently now if she could.
LikeLiked by 2 people
If she were here now I might know better how to approach the subject of her early life. We just take so long to grow up, don’t we?
LikeLiked by 1 person
I wonder what made her so afraid for you?
LikeLiked by 1 person
Well, I actually have a theory about that. I don’t think she was afraid of me. I think she was afraid of might could have happened. Years and years later I heard some things in the family that led me to believe she had been sexually abused by her oldest brother who was a drunk and a mean son of a gun. In pondering on what had happened when she found that little story, I think maybe she was afraid I was as vulnerable as she had been. Perhaps it was her way of saying contact between family was not appropriate. Just a guess on my part.
LikeLiked by 1 person
You may well be right about that; and you are surely right about the impact her reaction had on a sensitive child, so that even now you may hear that inner critic judging what you write. How sad, for both of you. But you’ve said you had a happy childhood and youth overall, so at some level she must have been able to envision something better for you and your siblings and try to make it happen?
LikeLiked by 1 person
She did for sure. And when there was major trouble in the marriage and she had every reason to end it, she stayed for our sakes. She could have left, but she didn’t. Her biggest problem was that she was not a communicator. But I think as Donna pointed out up there somewhere, that generation for the most part struggled to let their feelings be known to the important people in their life. Thanks for coming by MAR.
LikeLiked by 1 person