When I was 8 years old, I received a gift. I can't even remember who it was from, but I opened a gift, and in it was a beautiful white jewelry box with a ballerina inside. You know the kind...you wind up the little piece of metal on the bottom of the box, and poof, you have a twirling ballerina inside the middle of it and places to put your jewelry on both sides of her. That ballerina sure could twirl, but that wasn't all that she could do. She could see everything that happened in that small bedroom that I lived in. She knew me more than anyone. She saw a girl that would spend hours listening to read-a-long records, and she knew that I would sing all day long if I could. She knew that I lived to play my little keyboard and pretend that I was in a band. She saw the hardships that I had with my father and she watched my brother and I hide out in the middle of our adjoining closets. She knew that my brother and I fought to the death most days, especially during summer breaks, but she knew the real truth. She knew that we were best friends. I started to forget about her as I grew older and denied her the opportunity to twirl. I had better things to do with my time, like talk on a landline phone to my first boyfriend and sneak cigarettes into my room. She saw me hide those cigarettes in soda cans but she never told a soul. She watched me sneak that first boyfriend into my room, and still, she never told. She watched me sneak in late at night after hitching a ride home from cheering a basketball game with a boy that I wasn't supposed to be in a car with. She watched me cry for days after I suffered from my first broken heart, and she never said a word. She just stood there. She watched me pack up that little bedroom and move out at the very first opportunity that I had, and I took her with me. I'm not sure what made me think of that little jewelry box, but she is in my attic now. Maybe I should take her out and let her dance again.
This is my new journey in blogging. As is already obvious in the title, I am a single mother of two of the most fabulous children that I know (and I don't say that because they are mine), they truly are great kids. I not only love my children, I actually LIKE the people that they are. I know that we all love our children deeply and those are the rules of the universe, but do we LIKE them? I started my journey into single motherhood about seven years ago. It seems that I stumbled into the journey while blaming the seven year itch of my lovely ex husband....but now...now it seems that I am stumbling into a seven year itch myself. Not the typical seven year itch where you look for attention from others, but the kind where you almost want to run from it. I used to be the most social of creatures, but in recent months, I seem to want to be a recluse. It's safer in that environment. My daughter is now 13, yes...stumbling into womanhood the same way that we all had to, "
My ballerina was a small stuffed dog called Pink Puppy (who has been almost white for decades).
ReplyDeletePink Puppy has moved with me innumerable times and keeps secrets better than anyone else has ever managed. Pink Puppy never judges me either.
It’s “security blanket” at its finest ❤️
ReplyDeleteI had one of those too -- you should definitely let her come out and dance again! :)
ReplyDeleteYes. ❤️
Delete