Battlefields of My Childhood

I am struggling with my past.

I wrote a paper for a current class; the paper was about what I learned from my upbringing about work and how my experience as an adult has changed (or not). In writing my paper, I briefly recounted my parents life and what I learned about work.

It has been hard for me to do this because I have had to remember what I missed and it makes me sad and angry. Positively, I also see how far I've come and have been able to work through some things:

As a teen my father offered to pay me to scrape off decades of old paint from our three-seasoned porch one year during summer break. Excited at the prospect of earning money and praise I created an elaborate time-sheet to keep track of my hours and went to work. On my own and without guidance, support, or encouragement I soon became frustrated with my progress and failed to complete the project. My learned expectation for disappointment combined with not knowing how to ask for help doomed the project. I was later shamed by my father when he chastised me for not following through. For the rest of the summer I sulked around in confusion, guilt, and shame.

I also recounted my mom and found out some things from my Aunt Carol. Mom was extremely intelligent. Carol says she had an IQ in the high 130s.

This has highlighted parts of my life I had not uncovered and I have learned from it.

I am sad because each time I uncover more of my past, I understand more that my parents never dealt with my oldest brother's death as an infant. It's tartly poignant that my parents, who had so much to offer and so much life in them withered afterwards. The consequence to my brothers' and I - who came after - was that we were emotionally neglected.

I am angry because I cannot change the past and until I learn to grow away from it, I am forced to relive parts I don't fully understand. For many years I have held shame and guilt over my perceived failure to finish scrapping the damned house that one summer. Yet I never included my parents in the blame reserving the most acidic parts for myself. Now I can mourn what I lost and move on.

What really sucks is that it feels like I'm visiting the battlefield of my childhood. Strewn with the covered corpses of my past, I uncover each - one at a time - and gasp at what I learn. As I recover that past part of me and weep for what I lost, I move on to the next. Part of me relishes the growth and freedom that comes from understanding and urges me rush on to the next and the next until I am over-gorged, over-whelmed and sick on the morbid atrocities of my past. Part of me sighs and looks to the horizon for an end.