Isn't it funny hearing stories about yourself as a child? Correction. Isn't it funny hearing stories which feature another person's perspective about you? End of sentence, period. It always varies so much from the way you perceived it.
The other day my Aunt was visiting. My favorite Great-Aunt. Mother of my favorite cousin. My first flight on my own was to visit this Aunt. That was about five years ago. (Isn't it funny/slightly ironic to think I'm flying across country at least six times a year now? Emily the homebody.) Anyway, that flight was my first. Fourteen years old. It was a big step. Especially for me. Like I said, I was a homebody. I didn't leave home for anybody. I didn't spend the night at my friends' houses. But I flew across country for this Aunt. That's just to give an idea how special she is.
So of course seeing my Aunt meant lots of reminiscing, which was interesting for me because I'm not ten years old anymore. Of course I remember being ten, I remember when my Aunt and cousins lived here like it was yesterday. It's just- I was ten, so of course I've grown up slightly since then. It's weird though because I insert my nineteen year old mentality into my recollections of being ten. Does that make sense? Granted, my thought process has remained the same even though my manner of expressing it has matured. For example, apparently I used to tell my cousins (when they wanted to play rowdy boy games) that we were "peaceable Indians." Have to say, that sounds exactly like me. (Probably because I said it) I was all for homemade bows and arrows, but I didn't want anybody getting hurt. Convert that to a situation and context fitting for the present year and my response would probably remain the same. Though, hopefully I shall never use the sentence "peaceable Indians" again.
Memories are funny things, they make you filled with joy at the thought of a plastic cap-gun bought at the dollar store. My Aunt mentioned the day that she took William and I shopping and then bought us cap-guns, and seriously, it made me want to steal one of my brothers' just so I could hold it again. Of course, I can never be ten again, crouching down in the back of a car shooting imaginary bullets, but I remember how happy I was while I was doing it. William pried off the orange plastic bit from the end of the barrel with his pocket knife, which made us feel much more validated. They looked far more like authentic cowboy pistols without that ugly plastic marring our perfect sight. Apparently too much so, because a lady at the gas station started scolding my Aunt Nora for letting her children have guns. I think our responding emotion was half glee and half condescension towards the stupidity of people at gas stations. What makes it weird is that while I know it would no longer be appropriate for me to play with cap-guns, it still feels like yesterday that I did so. I suppose that's the thing about growing up, it's like layering years upon years, so you still know what it feels like to be ten, eleven, twelve. I think it's important to keep that memory close. That's how you're going to understand, to relate to your children, to the children around you. Don't insist on remaining a child, don't keep firing those imaginary pistols after the time for them is over, that would be wrong. Keep the memory though. Keep what it felt like, and what made you happy. Share that memory.
Of course, memories are also a bit mortifying. Aunt Nora was saying that the boys still talk about how we used to catch frogs, and go climbing across these huge logs. Of course the descriptor of me was something like "she used to fall and get really hurt, Mom, but she would always get up and keep climbing as if nothing had happened." It went exactly like that too, you know. I don't think I stopped having bruises on my shins till I was sixteen. They were constantly black and blue. I was not graceful. (There's a reason I'm not holding my breath and waiting to get good at dancing. Not gonna happen. Not for me. I'm always going to be apologizing for running into my partner's elbow and taking a wrong turn. At least I can laugh at myself. I even laugh at myself while I'm doing it, I don't know if that's the best reaction but that's the one I have. I end dances out of breath, partly because I've laughed at myself so much, and partly because there's been so much spinning. I love the spinning.) I never stopped putting myself in situations where I was going to bruise up my shins some more though. I have a contrary urge to prove myself in situations like that, which is weird considering I am not competitive. At all. Zero. However, we would be looking up a tree and somebody would be like "Nah. Too High." and I would insist that I was just fine and I could scramble my way up. Then I did it.
I remember this one time especially, where I had climbed up really high and I knew the only way to get down was to jump and I knew it was going to hurt. I was scared, because I knew that in exactly thirty seconds I was going to be bleeding at the elbows and there were going to be new bruises, but I also knew that they were waiting for me to hop down and so I had to do it. Of course it was ridiculous because they could see me getting hurt. They saw that my elbows were bleeding. It wasn't like I just did everything causally as if it were no big deal. No, I did the climbing and the running, the tree fort building and the digging, and nothing stopped me and I always picked myself up and smiled and laughed at myself, but I was not quick and deft at these things like I was hoping to be. Instead, it was Emily. Just a little bit clumsy and a little bit too slow, tripping as I tried to jump over fallen trees and falling as I tried to swing from a branch. I wasn't going to cry though. Not over the bleeding elbows or bruised shins. It was a matter of pride. It was also a matter of pride that I never said it was too much. I would just keep going. It probably was too much considering how inept I was at it, but I would insist that I was fine and I was having a wonderful time. I was too. I suppose that's what made it worth it. Even though I was constantly getting hurt, I was still having the best time. I also didn't want them to think that I wasn't capable of keeping up. That's where the matter of pride kicks in. It's different than being competitive in say sports, see, that's where I'm not competitive at all. I was constantly proving myself to myself though. I could keep going, I could climb higher, I could do it. Sometimes that still kicks in. Especially in regard to things outside. Skiing or swimming. Hiking. It's the adventure of it. We all need a little bit of adventure in our lives. Something just a little bit dangerous. Where we can push ourselves to our limit, and see how fast we can go.
It's just funny seeing that continuity. You don't really change. You grow and mature, yes, but I compare my younger self and my older self and it's still just me. Just look my story of going skiing last February. I needed to cut off by myself and go as fast as I knew I could. There's that, and then there's the way I fell over at the chairlift and knocked down three people. Yeah, some things just don't change.
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