I Swear To Tell the Truth, The Whole Truth and Nothing But the Truth as I Know It

Several people in my family have told me I should write my story. My standard reply is , "I would but no one would believe it". I don't consider myself a writer either so my confidence is low. I also realize that there are aspects of my story that will go against the grain of different people in different ways. All I ask as that you take it at face value and know that I am being as truthful as possible. And for heaven's sake don't be a mean guy or gal in the comments. I will read those things you write and try as I might to recite sticks and stones to my fifty plus year old self, it still does not work! It didn't work when I was 5 and it still does not work. Stop telling your kids that words can't hurt them. They can and they do. That said I really am a big girl now and I can handle constructive criticism. Key word here is constructive. I need all the help I can get in this endeavor and hopefully you can help me grow as a writer. I do love words when someone else writes them! Let's jump right in to my story, told in small bites.

• there is a good chance the names will be changed.... because I want to.

In the beginning. I was born. It was uneventful for me but somewhat eventful for my beautiful dark haired mother who I was sure was as beautiful as Natalie Wood. My mother already had three step sons and one daughter when I made my appearance on a warm spring day in Georgia. Mama was twenty one. Family lore says that when Mama brought me home from the hospital my big sister stood in the corner and cried. ( I think she did that again just the other day when I went to her house)....

My Dad was about 6 years older than my mom and had already been married twice before her. Dad loved to be on the road. He was a man with a wanderlust. He was in and out of our home as were his other children. Dad worked for several companies that took him across the country until finally going to work for Lockheed as a mechanic. When Lockheed offered him a chance to go to Zambia or London he jumped at the chance. Most of the time it was just "the girls" and Mama.

When I was about 3 years old we moved to a little ranch house in Georgia. I loved that house. It had a fenced in back yard and lots of pine straw to design our homes with. We spent hours arranging the pine straw on the ground into our houses. We outlined our kitchens and bedrooms, our bathrooms and even our cabinets and beds. We played house for hours! We also had a swing set that we played on with our new friends from the neighborhood. When the brothers came to visit we became cowboys and Indians or soldiers in imaginary wars. Life was good.

My sister Terri and I shared a room and a bed. We thought our bed was huge. It was so tall that we would go to the end of the hall and run as fast as we could to jump onto our bed. We had a toy box that I still have to this day. My dad brought it home from Lockheed. It was technically a cargo locker on a C5A Cargo plane. When Dad traveled he would bring us home stickers from whatever state he had been to. The toy box had stickers all over it and I loved every one of them. They meant that Daddy was thinking about us when he was away.

The one unpleasant thing about our house was that it did NOT have air conditioning. In Georgia. Nights were spent with the windows open. It was still hot at night in the spring and summer. And fall. In Georgia. We did have screens on the windows so at least we didn't have to contend with mosquitoes. Sometimes we would wake up in the morning wet from sweat. Sometimes I would wake up wet because I wet the bed. I was a sound sleeper. A very sound sleeper. I would dream I was on the toilet and never wake up...

Then one night I would wake up. The night was cooler than usual. I was about 4 years old or close to it. It seems crazy that I don't know for sure. My dad remembers me still being 3 and my mother, now deceased, remembered me being 4. This is what happens when you don't talk about things for 25 or 30 years. Details are lost. Only my memory survives and the memories of my sister and dad. I feel like my memory of the event is pretty intact but I admit that I have probably lost some of the details over time.

It being 1 am and all, this is probably a good place to stop. I will tell you in my next post about finding myself in the arms of a stranger going across my front lawn. And so it begins.