Childhood Memories
Michelle,
I haven't liked how I don't write a journal anymore - i write a blog. How my livejournal has more live than journal.
Lately there's just been "nothing" to write. Relationships, events, jobs, fights, goals, resolutions, observatoins - I've developed this deja vu attitude towards everything. Seems like so long ago since a thought woke me up in the middle of the night and screamed YOU HAVE TO WRITE ABOUT THIS!
Don't get me wrong, I think my life is great right now. It's just that nothing is a "first" anymore. First date, first kiss, first girlfriend ... first job, first paycheck, first promotion ... first car, first cellphone, first computer ... first misunderstanding, first fight, first breakup... first loss, first disappointment, first failure ... first words, first steps, first memories. First times.
My whole life just flashed before my eyes.
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Anyway, about an hour ago I had already turned off the Bucs-Steelers game and decided to call it a night. Sometime before the tenth sheep it takes to fall asleep, I thought about what Gem said. She reminded everyone that my first memory was when I wasn't even walking yet. We know this because I was able to say where the old buddha statue was - under the TV, which is just eye-level when you had to hold on to things to remain standing. Apparently the statue was moved somewhere else. Whatever.
So I got to thinking about all the other early memories I have. My whole childhood just flashed before my eyes.
3AM - First one that came to mind: I don't go to school yet, or maybe it's summer. It's late at night and my mom's watching TV whlie reading Reader's Digest. She tells me to go to sleep because it's 3AM (I didn't even know what 3AM meant, but "3AM" is the detail that really stuck with me). I tell her I can't sleep. And to prove how much energy I had, I lay face down beside the wall (that was where I slept, on mom and dad's bed before Iza outgrew the crib and they had to buy us the double bed thingie), turned my head towards the wall, stuck my arm in the gap between the bed and the wall, and swayed my arm back and forth while my nails scraped the wooden wall. See, even then I was a night person!
Lost Keys - For this memory to make sense, I must have been old enough to walk around but young enough that I had to be put in some sort of crib or playpen when they were too busy to take care of me. I remember my dad getting so angry cuz he thought I had lost the house keys. I think I liked playing with them. Anyway, he was really pissed off. Like we would be locked in the house if we didn't find those keys or something. I remember them looking all over the house. And every 10 seconds someone would talk to me and ask me if I had touched them. Where I had put them. Telling me to try and remember. Of course I kept saying that I didn't even touch them. I just watched them search everywhere, calm because I knew that I had nothing to do with the missing keys. Then when they finally found it, I realized that I was the one to put it there. I got them from the wall (they hang on these little hooks on the wall) and lost them somehow. I dunno, maybe they were beside the playpen. Then somehow I lost them. But when they finally found it, I still denied having anything to do with it, and they left me alone.
What I remember most about this is when I realized that I actually hid the keys, and then forgot about it. For some reason this is a very powerful memory. Maybe that was when I learned the concept of forgetting something. Or being at fault. Or getting away with something. Or guilt.
I had a similar experience when I was about 10. I had this chemistry set we bought from Hong Kong, only I wouldn't touch any "chemicals" because I didn't want to use them up. So there were 3 little containers of the stuff you can use up, and I hid them on top of my cabinet. I just played with the rest. Few days later, surprise surprise, I couldn't find them! So I kept yelling at the maids and blaming them. I was so angry. I was a violent little brat, so when I got really pissed off I threw the rest of the set and broke all the test tubes and stuff (the microscope survived haha). As soon as I'd done that, I was thinking "oh no! what've I done??" but i pretended like I didnt care. When my parents got home they gave me a little sermon. I told them I got mad because the maids lost the stuff. They said they know, but the point is that I shouldn't have broken the stuff. Given how violent/angry I got in the next few years, I could see why they were worried.
First Weeks of School - I started going to preschool when I was three. I hated it there. So on the car ride on the second day of school, I threw up and I didn't have to go to school. I did this for about a week before they caught on. If they didn't I'd still be throwing up to this day.
Running for My Life - There was this one time my mom got pissed and she was chasing me around the table while holding a knife. A big kitchen knife. I don't think she was planning to stab me, but I was shit scared. I remember the cold sweat. I also remember what kind of table we had, and how I thought "haha I'm so fast! you'll never catch me!!" hahahaha
Jail the Pusher - And this one time, in band camp, I tried to push Iza down a manhole. She just tripped, fell, and got a big-ass wound. Thank God I didn't kill her.
This actually isn't a "first memory" type of thing, but after "Lost Keys" memory I just felt like writing about this one...
Layas! - My dad tried to kick me out of the house at least twice when I was a kid. He's really a "my house, my rules" type of guy and I first found that out when I was about 4. We had some sort of argument while in the car, and he told me to get out. Of course I wouldn't get out, and my mom wouldn't let me. So my dad was the one who got out of the car. I guess the cars behind us were honking their horns or something, because my mom drove for a while and circled the block or whatever. My dad was still standing in the same spot (haha!) when we drove by and she tried to convince him to get back in the car. He wouldn't get in and she drove around again. In the car my mom was scolding me for "what I had done" but the only thing I could think of was how I would "survive" if I had been the one who got off. The second time we drove by, he got in and we had a quiet ride home.
The second time he tried to kick me out , I was about 5. Days before this second incident, he told Iza and I to stop fighting or else he'd make us leave. Y'know, the typical fights you have with your siblings 3 times a week. He even gave me the whole, "you're the older brother, just let your sister have her way" speech. So 3 days later, right on schedule, we have a fight. We were fighting over Jollibee giveaways I remember. The one where Jollibee's head gets taken off. But I digress. He opens the door from like a hard day's work, and finds us fighting. We immediately start pretending that everything was ok, but it was too late. He told us to pack up and leave. So Iza and I were both crying and putting clothes and toys into plastic bags - all of a sudden we were each other's best friend. She was asking me like where we would go, and I told her I knew how to go to Ibert's place. But the whole time I was thinking I'd kill myself by jumping off the nearby bridge (yea, I was suicidal for over a decade). I still remember making sure that I packed the Family Computer, even if I was plannin to jump off the bridge. Eventually my dad noticed that our "packing" was just our way of stalling and he told us to leave with whatever we had. On our way out, my mom saw us (downstairs is really just the office). She asked us where we were going and we said that dad told us to leave. I dunno what she said, but we went upstairs together.
I don't think dad's asked me to leave ever since. I think. But he still does that shit to Iza. At least twice more.
About late grade school I had those suicide thoughts again. Still same old method, jumping off a nearby bridge (Metro Manila seems to be full of small bridges). At night I would plan on jumping off after school the next day. Thankfully the "next day"s were always good ones. I never actually remembered to even walk to the bridge.
Ok I'm getting sleepy again. Last one...
When I got lost in Luneta - we were riding our bike around Luneta. One bike Iza and I so we alternated. One round each. So when it got really late, my mom said "ok last round." I figured I'd make the most of this last round, so I took a HUGE round, as far as I could ride. hahaha when I got back, mom and Iza were gone. I immediately thought they had left me. I was always paranoid. I ALWAYS thought there was a chance my parents would get pissed off and leave me somewhere. Probably cuz my dad wanted to leave me out in the godforsaken streets when I was four. (Y'know what? When my aunties were late picking me up my first day at Xavier, I thought they had left me there, too!! Well, I was THE ONLY kid left in school...) Anyway I rode around asking EVERYONE if they had seen my mom. I wonder what those people were thinking. I can't imagine what I'd do if a kid walked up to me and asked if I'd seen his mom. Eventually a security guard got so concerned and started walking around with me. We were probably walking towards a phone (or walking towars a spot where he would rape me) when I saw our car drive by! The guard and I ran towards that old rusty Ford and kept waving our arms. It's interesting that throughout this whole run, I was still thinking that my mom was trying to leave me. But when I saw her I could see how worried she was, and I knew that they had been looking all over for me.
Biking down memory lane,
D.