Stories of Childhood, Part 1

I realize it's been over a year. 

I got a job, found a place to live, found a church where I'm feeling more and more comfortable; I've also been seeing someone special for a few weeks. I have not, however, had any good medications for about two months. I'm living on a very thin edge until my new benefits kick in and, of course, some days are better than others.

I also bought a new car, which means I need to find a second job. Gee, I wish I could make money on this blog. I may have to put a PayPal button at the bottom ...

Meanwhile, back at the ranch ...

I've decided to start blogging my childhood. Nothing bad, or nothing intentionally mean, but things I want to try to analyze, or at least prove to myself and perhaps other people who see me that I've always been this way and that it's probably okay. I mean, God made me this way, God works with what He's given me and no matter how hard I worry, I'm along for the ride no matter what. 

My kids keep telling me I should write a book about my mother. Perhaps. I even have a name for it: "All We Had for Christmas One Year Was a Can of Spam." My mother is a storyteller. Very few of them are completely true, several of them are outright fantasy, but at one time or another, she told all of them as Gospel truth. The above title was a story which was included in a litany against my dad and included beans that refused to cook through and spending money on "tars for the car" instead of things for the family, which still made my mother angry three decades later. 

I don't know about now. My mother is turning 90 this November; my dad has been gone for more than 10 years and she's been in Texas living with my sister since then. I'm planning a visit, which will be the first time I've seen her in a long time. 


In any case, some of my stories are about hearing her stories. 
My children also tell me they're going to write a book about me and call it "It's An Adventure." I used to tell the kids, when life got crazy or out of hand, or even if we were just lost in the car, that it was an adventure and to take it in stride. I think I was mostly trying to convince myself. 

Nowadays, the adventure for me is making myself get up and go to work with people who don't know me and whom I don't want to really know. There's a difference between coworkers and friends, you know, and bipolar disorder is not a great conversation starter in any case.


So. Yeah. The first story.
It's not a long one. Along with the bipolar disorder there's OCD and extreme sensitivity. My mother called me Nervous Jervis all my childhood and really, that's also where the ADHD fits in. My previous doctor told me it's not real ADHD, it's a symptom of the bipolar called hypomania, but if the shoe fits ...

We lived in this big house on O Street in Sacramento, a Victorian before it was converted into dentist offices with two floors, a full basement and a really cool attic that we called the third floor because the window in there was higher than the rest of the house. 

I was five when we moved in, but hey, I already knew it all. One morning before anyone got up, I decided I'd be helpful and light the furnace. I don't think the house had a thermostat; if it was cold, you lit the furnace and if it was hot you turned on the swamp cooler.

Already you can see where this is going. I didn't. I'd seen my older brother do it and decided it couldn't be that difficult, considering he was only 12 years older than I was but hey, it's me! I turned on the gas and proceeded to look for the matches. Yes, I blew off my eyebrows. I remember the rest of the family coming when I yelled and then all of them laughing at me. I don't even remember getting a scolding, although I'm fairly sure I did.

That's it. At some point while we were living at that house, my kindergarten, 1st and 2nd grade years, my mother took me to a psychologist who told her I was the world's youngest teenager. Wrong diagnosis, but for some reason my mother thought that was the funniest thing in the world. Those same years, my dad quit going to church and we quit eating around the table as a family. My sister left to join the Army and my oldest brother didn't leave to go to college. 

At the beginning of 3rd grade, my mother left my dad and took us with her. 

I could go on, but I don't want to get too serious too soon. Maybe next time I'll talk about irises in the back yard and taking my shoes off to walk home from school. You know, other stuff with maybe a happy ending or something like that. 

Have I mentioned my short attention span yet?