2 posts tagged “my childhood my self”

In typical Blog Laziness fashion, I don't post for eons then post one of these surveys. Okay, well, I did have a baby late June and have had a tough time healing so have been quite a bit out of sorts. That's a good excuse, right?

Saw this on my sister's blog so felt compelled to respond.

1. are you a child of the 70s, 80s, or 90s?
born in the mid-60s

2. Where were you born?
Kapiolani Hospital in Honolulu, Hawaii

3. What city did you grow up in?
Honolulu, Sands Point, Port Hueneme, Monterey, Madrid, Milton, Fairfax, Philadelphia, Charlottesville, Richmond, Charlotte, New York City, on the road for 1 year in my old RV, Wyoming and now Alaska - Okay, that is where I've lived but I was copying my sister's list and it looked impressive so I just personalized it.

4. Did you enjoy your childhood?
well, I can't remember a lot of it - just bits and pieces like a slide show. I loved living in Spain. I loved our first dog Wyskers. Not a lot of favorite memories other than those.

5. When you were a kid what did you want to be when you grew up?
a writer and at one point, I wanted to be an actress on the original Star Trek series

6. Name the first memorable vacation.
Honolulu - I again only remember snippets like eating a coconut and being on the beach. Of course, I did get stung by a jellyfish which was memorable but not in a good way. This was when we were visiting Hawaii to see our Dad who was in Vietnam at the time.

7. What was your first best friends name?
I can only remember my best friends names circa middle school

8. Are they still your best friend?
nope - I have very few friends from my childhood since we were Navy brats and moved around so often.

9. What did you play with most as a child?
Baby Tender Love and my Chrissy doll who had hair that would get short when you turned a knob on her back and long when you pressed her bellybutton and pulled her hair. I still have both.

10. Who was your first crush?
Bobby Sherman (c'mon, you remember "Bubble Gum and Braces," don't you?)

11. Were you a shy quiet kid or a very wild and rowdy kid?
Very shy in my head but one of those smart kids with a good vocabulary at a young age

12. When you were little what did you do for fun?
Read books, drew pictures, made paperdolls - my most favorite thing to do and I'd make entire mix and match wardrobes, too.

13. Were you closer to your Mom or Dad as a kid?
Dad, definitely

14. Do you have any embarrassing school stories to share?
Not really that I can recall. I probably blocked them all out of my head.

15. What was the first record, tape or CD you remember buying?
Record - I remember running out to buy the double album of the motion picture Grease immediately after seeing it. I still know every word to every song on it. Will that make me any money? No!

16. How old did you want to be when you got married?
I never thought of getting married and eventually thought I never would (proved myself wrong, of course). But no thoughts of white weddings in chapels with cake.

17. How old to have kids?
I never really thought about it.

18. Were you scared of anything?
Covens of witches

19. What was your favorite class in school?
Mr. Stanton's 4th grade class because he taught us dances from around the world and had us put all of our schoolwork together and then had them bound into hardcover books. He also encouraged us to write stories.

20. Broke any bones or had any freaky accidents as a kid?
Broke a big toe playing kick ball - or at least I think I did - or maybe I was just coming up with an excuse not to play since I absolutely HATED P.E.

21.Were you a mean little kid?
I was mean to my little sister, that's for sure. Otherwise, people were usually mean to me - I was a brainy, nerdy, goody two shoes.

22. Favorite board game of all time?
operation - my sister wrote this and I have to agree. Monopoly is a close second, but only if I'm winning.

23. Did you play house or pretend to be a super hero?
I pretended to be an alien super hero and ran through the woods behind my best friend's house. We were in 7th grade and she made me swear I wouldn't tell a soul that we did this because she was embarassed. She eventually dumped me as a friend to hang out with cool kids and I was decidedly uncool.

24. Random memory from when you were a kid...
going to the candy store in Madrid by ourselves or eating churros y chocolate at a diner down the street

25. Seriously..are you still just a kid at heart?
Not really. I do feel young and try to tap into that kid-self, but too many years of too many things - maybe I'm jaded.

26. What was your favorite vintage toy or a toy your sibling had that you wanted?
Can't think of anything...maybe she'll remember something I coveted. I think she liked my stuff more than I liked hers - hey, I was the older sister so until she became the cooler one, I had my brief moments of cool.

I am afraid to read the article In Search of the Spiritual in Newsweek because, frankly, I'm terrified of organized religion.

I am convinced that our country is going to hell in a handbasket because of fanatical religious zealots who grossly skew the Bible/Koran/Old Testament/etc. and the teachings of (FILL IN THE BLANK) to create justifications for their own twisted views of the world.

Organized religion has become a dark cloak to wear over intolerance, bigotry, hatred - a disguise that is working to infiltrate our schools, our media, our lives and influence people to lose their ability to see the world with open eyes or to approach the world with an open heart in the name of religion and "God."

"Love Thy Neighbor" - which is are three amazingly powerful words - have absolutely zero literal meaning. The dominant religion(s) in the United States have distorted "Love Thy Neighbor" into "Love Only Thy Neighbor Who Looks Like You, Acts Like You and Worships Like You."

I'm afraid of organized religion because it dictates how I should feel about God, how I should speak to God, and even who God wants me to be.

Do I even believe in God? (Note that I still capitalize God just in case she really exists and will strike me down if I'm disrespectful).

Actually, I can't say that I believe in God. What I can honestly say is that since I was a little girl, I have had one great hope and one major awareness.

My great hope - and I remember having this around 10 or 11 years old or maybe even younger - was that there was something greater than me out there who heared my prayers and actually had the time - in between war, famine, disease, poverty, crime - to actually consider what I was saying silently to myself and putting out there into the cosmic universe. I always apologized for any trivial prayers where I was wishing for a prettier face or some friends who were actually nice to me. I would always draw attention to my more important prayers, like peace on earth and a cure for cancer.

My major awareness - happening around the same age or maybe even younger - was the awareness that I was somebody and something but that someday I would be nothing. From a very early age, I was plagued by intense and unpredictable anxiety attacks stemming entirely from this early realization that I was mortal and some day would die. The worst of these attacks came in my teens and early 20s, but they have continued periodically throughout my adult life. I've learned to sense when they are about to happen and to use my rational mind to distract myself from fixating on my imminent (never an actual timetable on this one) death. I've tried to explain this happening over the years to close friends or boyfriends and even my husband, but nobody seems to relate to these attacks that I have.

I have had some people in the past tell me that if I had faith - if I believed in God - then I would not have these panic attacks. That faith in God assures me that there is something better beyond this life and with that assurance, surely I won't have panic attacks. Bullshit.

First, I don't know for sure there is a God. Second, I refuse to have blind faith in anything. Third, even if there was a God, chances of there actually being an afterlife where I would be consciously aware of myself and my life here on earth are slim to nil. Reincarnation? Sounds interesting, but again, I would not have an awareness of my past life (lives?) and therefore my time here and now is obliterated. Absolutely, totally gone. I hate that.

The more "religious" our government becomes and our country becomes, the more I fear for any true peace on our planet. Organized religion is not about peace. Organized religion is about separating the "good" from the "bad," the "blessed" from the "outsiders," those who will be accepted by Jesus Christ Our Savior to join him in heaven from the rest of us freaking heathens who just want to live a good life, be kind to ourselves and others and be open to the world around us, to learn, to love and to truly be at peace during this nanosecond that we are here on earth.