Everchanging Misery

Earliest Memories: Soso

I'm not sure when all of these thoughts and recollections take place in my childhood, for I've blocked out most of my childhood for obvious reasons. It was to hard to keep them, so I guess I subconsciously locked them all away. Because when you go through certain things, it felt best to let them get lost in the dark corners of your mind. I don't know if these happened in order, or out of place, or if some even happened or not. I could have created false memories that might have seemed worse or better as a coping mechanism. So please, don't get upset if it seems some of these things aren't true.

One of my first memories was when I was barely three years old, my grandfather, my first pawpaw, had passed from leukemia. My mawmaw told me that it was too late to treat, and he had passed in the hospital. I remember being at his funeral, and as they were laying the casket down, I jumped into the coffin and hugged him screaming "If you take him you're going to have to take me too!" I'm pretty sure this was a dream, or a false memory because of how most funerals go, but I think that it was sent to me by my pawpaw as a way not to forget about him. Though, before this one happened, I had a memory of being in my old house in Soso. It was a summer afternoon and my mawmaw and pawpaw were in a little kiddy pool waiting for me to slide down a slide that was connected to the swing set. I did slide down, and I was laughing and smiling. To be honest I think that was the happiest I've ever been in my entire life.

I don't have many memories of being at my old house, but the ones I do make me feel.. empty. In one, I was playing in my room with a blue teddy bear with marker drawings all over it. I don't know what happened to him, but I do know he was my favorite stuffed animal. I would carry him everywhere. In another I had in my room, I wanted to play dress up but all of the dresses I had were in the closet, and I was very short. So I kept tugging on one of them until it came off, but the hanger came with it and hit me in the forehead. I didn't realize I was bleeding until I felt my forehead and saw the blood. I started crying and ran into the kitchen to my mama who, after seeing me bleeding and crying, started freaking out and picked me up to examine me. I never knew I was scared of blood until then, and I still don't know why. Was it something from a past life? A final memory, but not the last, of the house in Soso was when I was playing with my older cousins. Ethan and his older brother. I'm not sure the age difference, but thinking on it they looked like preteens or teens. Ethan, his brother, and I were playing tag, and they chased me up the playset and I refused to come down, but I'm still not sure why.

Speaking of playing, I had an aunt who babysat all of my families kids and friends' kids. I called her Aunt Mary, while everyone else called her Granny She also reminded me of Ursala from The Little Mermaid, but I would never tell her that for a long time. You see, I always thought that "Granny" made her seem old, which she was and still is, but I found it rude so I called her what I wanted to call her. Anyhow, my mawmaw would always drop me off at her house when she had to go to work because she didn't trust my mama to watch me and keep me safe. I remember one time she told me that my mama couldn't get me to take my medicine when I had a cold, so she took me down the road to my Aunt Mary's house and she always got me to take my medicine. She scared me sometimes, threatening me with a switch if I misbehaved. I remember there was also this doll in her bathroom. It sat on a cabinet that was above the toilet. It was a Raggedy Ann doll that I swore stared into my soul. All of my cousins and friends were terrified of it. As for my cousins and friends, and even a few enemies, we were all playing on the hill outside their house one day. Walker, one of the older boys who wasn't my cousin, was the horse in the game. We had to get on his back and stay there while he tried to buck us off. I fell off and began crying and he tried to apologize, but I was too upset and ran into the house and told my aunt. I can't remember what his punishment was, but the next thing I remember, him and my cousin Cole dragged me into the children's bedroom and kept me there. I kept crying and yelling for my aunt to come get me, pinned in the corner wall next to the door, but she never did. Meanwhile the two older boys were laughing and making fun of me and threatened to beat me up if I tried to leave, I didn't know what was going on. Don't get me wrong, they weren't the ones who raped me, not at first anyways, all they did was bully me.

Hurricane Katrina came two years later, and I was in my Mawmaw Jewel's house. She was the mother of my pawpaw, and mother of my Uncle Danny who was my Aunt Mary's husband. I always had fond memories at her house with my Uncle John, who was her son too. He would teach me to bake cakes and would watch me sometimes too. I remember watching TV there and playing jacks on the floor even though he always made me a pallet. But you see, the hurricane was no good memory. In fact it was a scary one. I remember being in the closet, it was dark and I couldn't see anything. My mom was on my right side and Jewel on my left. I remember asking what was going on and where they were, and I got a hand on my shoulder as a response. After it was over, I remember being at my Aunt Mary's house again, but looking at her shed that was somehow torn apart by the storm that made us hide. I walked through the rubble with my cousins in tow, looking at all of the destruction it caused. However, I found a music box. It had a feminine figure that I can't recall, but it looked beautiful. Of course I couldn't keep it, but It was so amazing to me how something made of glass could have survived that horrible night.

The shed was torn down and removed, including the music box, and life went back to normal. That is, if normal was the right word for it. There was a patch deep into the forest that was behind my aunts property, it was dark and full of vines, and my cousin Blake said that a bear lived deep inside it. I didn't believe him and I demanded that he show me, so we made our way through all of the vines and thickets. We did not find a bear, but we did find metal. I came to the realization that maybe a spaceship crash landed there and that we shouldn't be there or the aliens would find us. So we left and went back to finding bird eggs in the blueberry bushes, along with picking the berries as well. There was also a thicket on the other side of the property where blackberries grew, and we sometimes picked those too. Aunt Mary would bake cakes and other treats out of them, that is, if I didn't stop eating so much of them.

There came a day that she had to take Blake and his younger brother Brady home, or pick them up, either or. And I was left alone with my Uncle Danny. I remember being called into his and my aunts room, I was in a weirdly good mood, so I was a bit giggly and hyper. I smiled and started to make fun of him like I most of the time do with my other cousins cause he would always make us laugh. But he wasn't acting like he was in the mood for making me laugh, and I didn't have time to think before he picked me up and pinned me to the bed. I had to idea what was going on, and I blacked out- blocked out those memories. But when it was over, I remember getting up from the bed in a completely different mood and I was putting on my shirt. I remember him vividly telling me, "Don't tell anyone about what just happened, they'll think it was bad."

So I never told anyone..