One of my earliest memories involves diapers.
Unfortunately, I wasn't the one wearing them.
I was three at the time, and my mom's friend, Sandy, was visiting our house with her two daughters. Her older daughter, Britney, was a year older than me, and Kaylee was a year younger. Our moms were best friends since high school, and that basically made us best friends, too.
Honestly, I don't remember much about this particular day. I couldn't tell you what toys we played with, or what I was wearing. I couldn't even tell you what season it was. It could have been a hot summer day, beneath a blazing sun and a cloudless blue sky. Or it could have been the dead of winter, with everything buried beneath a foot of snow.
But I do remember what came next.
"Mom," Britney said in the middle of our game. "I need to go potty."
Sandy turned from her conversation and gave her daughter a frank look, as if she didn't quite believe her. In all fairness, maybe Britney had a habit of false alarms back then. Remember, I was only three, and I certainly didn't know the whole story.
"Britney," she said in a weary voice. "I'm not taking your diaper off again."
Diaper?
I was already potty-trained by this point, and I couldn't remember the last time I'd wet the bed, much less worn a diaper during the day. And Britney was a whole year older than me! My curiosity got the better of me a second later, and I immediately scurried over to my own mother.
"Mom," I said in a small, serious voice. "Why does she wear diapers?"
"Everyone's different," my mother replied knowingly.
Britney grew more insistent with her requests. I don't remember much, but I'm pretty sure she had to go number two, and her mother hadn't realized this before. They went off to the bathroom, Britney did her business, and they returned to the living room a few minutes later.
There, Britney lay down on the carpet while her mother pulled out a fresh diaper from her bag. Not a pull-up, either. An honest-to-goodness diaper, with tabs and a white, plastic back.
Once again, my curiosity got the better of me and, I couldn't help but watch the scene unfold. Britney was four, and I looked up to her like a big sister. This whole thing was confusing my little brain.
You're probably thinking I was jealous of her. I mean, here I am, years later, a full grown woman, writing a story about diapers. I obviously have a thing for them, right?
But no, I didn't like diapers that way until many years later. I was proud to be wearing big girl pants, and jealousy was far from my mind at that moment. It was more like curiosity, and a hint of something more. Not true jealousy, but a seed that would grow over the years.
I continued to watch my friend get diapered, then I turned to my own mother once again. "Will I have to wear diapers again, too?"
This probably seems like a weird question, but three-year-old brains are far from logical. In my mind, Britney had already been potty-trained, and she'd somehow regressed to wearing diapers again. Did this moment foreshadow my own path? Would all my hard work be erased?
Obviously, Britney was still in the process of potty training, but how was I supposed to know that?
My mom gave me a sympathetic look and assured me that no, I wouldn't ever have to wear diapers again.
That wasn't true, of course. If it were true, there would be no story.
