I have been contemplating this day all week. I kept wondering just how bad it was going to be. And here I am...and it's fine. I have found myself thinking happy thoughts more today than sad thoughts. Yes, I miss her. God how I miss her. But I miss her every day, so today isn't any different.
Have you ever stumbled onto something that you'd been looking for? And it was like the universe was saying..."Hey...Look here." Today I was moving papers around the office when two papers feel out of a folder. When I looked to see what they were, they were copies of an interview The Niece did with Mom when the Niece was in high school.
Hmmm...is Mom talking to me?
Anyhow, I wanted to share it.
"Wow, you are asking me to remember a way, long time ago. But here goes. What were my teen years like? I was a teenager in the 1960's. The 1960's were a time of change for the United States. when I was in school, in southern California, there were "gangs" in school, but they were more like different groups. There were the "bookies", which now would be the "nerds"; there were the Chicanos, which were the Mexican group; there were the "surfers", no explanation needed; the "jocks", again, no explanation, and the "preppies" or the popular, into everything school leaders. I can't say I belonged to just one group, I hung around with all of them, but probably more in the "Preppy" group. In my junior year and senior year I was a cheerleader and in the drill team. I also worked for Von's Grocery company behind the cookie counter (now it would be the bakery). I could work legally at 15, and I went to work part time after school. I had to work for anything extra I wanted (i.e. extra "cool" clothes, surf board, class ring, extra spending money, etc.)
I had a lot of friends in school, and spent as much time as I could with them, but between school, working, cheerleading and drill team practice, I didn't have a lot of time left. and I was expected to help around the house as well. I had my regular chores of keeping my room clean (my mom would NOT ACCEPT a messy room - there was no option); vacuuming once a week, doing the dishes every other night (no dishwasher); cleaning the bathroom once a week and helping with dinner when I was home.
My mom and I got along okay, but I was a teenager and there was some tension between us from time to time. I had to be home on the weeknights...I was only allowed to go to practice and work, and then I had to be home by 9pm. My homework had to be done either before I went to practice or work, or immediately after I got home from either one. If I didn't have practice or work, my homework was done as soon as I got home from school...that was the rules of the house and I never challenged them. The way I looked at it, it was easier to go along with the rules than to fight them. At least it kept me out of trouble. On the weekends, if I went out, i was to be home by midnight...no later and not bargaining about a later time. I missed curfew a few times and was grounded, once for a month...no phone, no friends, only work and practice. And after I bought my car (my grandmother and I bought it...she helped me buy it - the car was a 1953 Chevy, and it cost $100, I only had $85 saved up, so she loaned me the $15 to finish paying for it...and I had to pay her back on my next payday) i had it about a month when I missed a curfew and my dad took away my car for two weeks. I was back to walking to school, practice and work! I had to decide which was more important, keeping curfew and my car, or walking...I chose keeping curfew and the car. Lesson Learned!
I did have an eating problem in high school. Back then there really wasn't a name for it. I just didn't eat. In my sophomore year I got really sick from not eating. I would eat, just not a lot. My parents were frustrated with my not eating and very worried. I was anorexic as they call it now. I was forced to eat more and more very day and I was expected to gain a point every week. That was so hard for me...I thought I was fat! I weighed 82 lbs my sophomore year and was 5'4" tall. Not healthy at all. After numerous doctor visits, the doctor told my parents they would hospitalize me if I didn't start gaining weight and "force feed me". I didn't want to find out what that was all about, so I started to try and eat and gain weight. I never realized how horrible I really looked being so thin. I finally gained 13 lbs and was at the lower end of acceptable weight. When I was underweight, I had very littler energy and my hair had started to fall out from being malnourished. I was starving myself to death. It took a long time for me to overcome the disease, but I finally did. I did some teen modeling when I was 14-16 for an agency in LA. When I was so thin, they wouldn't use me because I was too thin. I liked modeling and wanted to be a model, so it was a goal for me to gain some weight so I could model again.
What happened in my teen years? Hmmm...the hippy movement began when I was a teenager. some of my friends dropped out and became hippies. the Viet Nam war began and there were a lot of war protesters. Since my boyfriend was in the marines and I didn't really believe in the war, but supported our troops. I didn't really understand the war, and I don't think anyone really did. President Kennedy was shot my junior year of high school. that really scared me. to think someone would shoot our president. we also had he "Cuban crisis" when I was a sophomore. I remember everyone was scared we were going to war (remember our parents went through WWII) and began stockpiling food, they were remembering when during WWII there were rations on food, gas and other commodities.
What is the most important learning from those years? Ugh...what a question. I think the most important thing I learned is to like myself for who I am. My anorexia stemmed from me trying to be someone I wasn't. I wanted to be a model and I thought I had to be extra thin, but that was not true. I learned to be who I was and like myself. I also learned to chose my friends carefully. Some could lead me down the wrong road and my life would have been much different than it is today. I learned to make wise choices, choices that were good fro me, maybe not the most popular choices, or what my friends wanted me to do. I had a good set of values and I learned to use them wisely. "
Miss you Mom!
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