I have a fantastic memory - nothing boasting about it.
It's almost photographic; in the sense that I can picture places in my mind perfectly and draw them vividly as if I was there. I can always find what I need and remember where things are left - which is quite helpful. I remember moments from childhood as easily and as factually as knowing what I ate last Tuesday. The trauma and happiness in my life feel as real as it did when it happened years ago as it do right here in my present.
I can remember the summers intensely, spent on Carrollton Avenue in West Baltimore, us kids in the middle of the street playing Freeze-Tag; the blacktop pavement creating heatwaves in the air. All the boys shirtless, the array of black skin tones from the deepest of ebony to the lightest of praline, were sweating and showing their innocence. (We had a friend so black that he was not black at all - he was purple. So we called him Purple. My sister loved him.)
I was every bit a tomboy. Can you believe that? Me now, Brittanie in my makeup and wigs was once afraid to wear a skirt or carry a purse; I would cry out in embarrassment when I had to put my menstrual pads on the conveyor belt at the supermarket. (I didn't want anyone to know I even had a period. I wanted to be a boy. I was humiliated!) One thing stayed true, it's fifteen years later, and I still hate my period.
I truly wanted to be a boy. I used to be so afraid to admit this. I never fantisized of wanting to have a penis or even considered that I was transgender, which I am not - I just didn't want to be a girl. Take that as you will. Girls had to wear heels, which I hated. Girls had to have all girl friends and like girly things, which I despised. Other than playing with Barbie dolls, the most girly thing about me, I didn't do many girly things. Even though my mom dressed me and my sister in similar girly outfits and styled my hair in a thousand ponytails sealed with colorful Barettes, I wanted to be a boy. Even when I played with my dolls, I played with my brothers action figures more. (I married my Brandy Barbie to my brothers Triple H. action figure.) As I grew older, I wore baggy jeans or my tan Bermuda shorts with my sandy brown hair in cornrows or out in an Afro as I climbed trees with my brother, Randy. I was, in my head, another one of the boys.
Before I go off into a whole story about my love of being my brothers shadow, I want to begin with one of the first secure homes I had - on Edmondson Avenue, almost at Edmondson Village in a Baltimore, Maryland.
Like I said, my mother was a struggling single mother. While she had four children by four very irresponsible men (they had the capability of taking care of their kids - they just didn't care to.) she moved around, a lot. At the time I couldn't understand why we moved so much. I was young. Maybe six and I remember us moving to at least three places that I can remember. It wasn't until I was around thirteen that I realized we were being evicted. My mother had assistance from the government; food stamps, section-8, health insurance. For the most part, the government truly did help us greatly. It provided us with food, shelter, and a way to make sure we were healthy. (I was always so excited to get my free glasses every year. Btw: If you don't know I have horrible vision. Damn near blind!)
During my early years I actually don't remember too much of the struggle. I think because my mother hid it so well. I also realize because it was when she still allowed us to be kids; shielding things from us. It took me years to acknowledge all that my mom went through while we kids unknowingly lived through life happily. My mother has told me things she has done for us that I feel is not my place to say here. Just know, my mother loves her children. More than I realized at the time and learning to forgive her allowed me to love her and respect her in a completely new way.
When I was younger, maybe five years old, we lived in a shelter in West Baltimore for a while and I remember the complete layout of the space; the red bricked building, the large double-wide stairwell that sat to the left once you came inside. I remember this place so vividly because this is when I started to know. I think we all have that moment, where we begin to know that something is not right and that something sets our family apart from others. I went to this school program while we were at the shelter, waving hello and goodbye to the lady at the front desk, and on one occasion even gave her the middle finger when I overheard her calling us dirty. I always wondered why my family all slept in one room housed with twin beds and a small TV that forever played Good Times. (Oh the irony.) I used to be afraid of that building. As I became a woman, I would purposely avoid taking the route to my work that made me drive past it. When I was a girl, the building was huge, towering - maybe because I was so small, everything seemed terrifyingly enormous. Going back to that shelter as a woman facing her fears, I realized it was just another building on a block, not as large as I had previously remembered, or maybe it was just me feeling taller; inside.
YOU ARE READING
Three Miles in Baltimore
Non-FictionI was born in Baltimore, Maryland to a single struggling mother of four. Last year, in the midst of a mental breakdown, I began writing. I wrote in hopes of understanding my depression. I wrote to calm my ever present anxiety. I wrote to acknowledge...
