Admiration

I admire my fellow bloggers who are able to tell us stories of their youth and growing up. Sometimes as I read their recollections I get a brief glimpse of a memory or two from my own childhood. My memories of those times are far too few.

I don't believe my childhood was so terrible that I've totally blocked things out, but I do believe it was painful enough at times that I subconsiously choose to not remember them. Both of my sisters are younger than I am and I rely on their memories of events in our lives back then much more than I do my own.

We didn't have much in the way of material things but we had a creek and pastures and fields to roam in. As I sit here, I can take my mind back to how the farm looked, my favorite reading spot in a big, old oak tree, the smell of lilacs the spring we lived in Minnesota, the freezing cold in the winters there. I remember the birth of my youngest sister, barely, but only because of a remark my father made when he told us we had another little sister. I just can't put together enough memories to completely describe very many details of these events.

I really think I've just been old my whole life.