Full and Empty

My memories of childhood are mostly pretty hazy.

In most ways, I had a very privileged childhood - I had great parents, lived in a good neighborhood, and if we had to worry about money, I never knew about it. I was an only child, and while I don't think I was spoiled, I was definitely lucky. I had toy cars on toy racetracks, several Barbies, a trunk full of dress-up clothes, and tons of Play-Doh. My mom got me a Cabbage Patch Doll, though I can't say I ever asked for it or played with it. Mostly, I preferred arts and crafts or reading. I read my first book at the age of three and from then on couldn't get enough. A friend got a Nintendo Entertainment System and I couldn't get enough of it, and one Christmas it showed up under the 2 and a half foot plastic tree we decorated every year. My mom took me to nature centers, karate lessons (once), gymnastics lessons (many times), and even horseback riding until we couldn't afford it anymore.

At the same time - while I have plenty to be grateful for, my childhood didn't feel like a carefree one. I always had problems finding friends, and the friendships I had always seemed difficult or one-sided. In my neighborhood, there was Claudia*, who could be very fun but also pretty manipulative, and there was Emily, who was three years younger than me and who I played with most often but who I never really felt close to. No one else would give me the time of day. At school, my best friend Mary had her own best friend. It wasn't me, and I don't recall Mary ever coming over to play.

I remember one time, there was a new girl at school. I don't know if she approached me or if I, shy as I was, managed to introduce myself to her. Either way, by the end of the day, we were friends. I was so excited that I wrote a poem about how I'd made a new friend and proudly read it to my parents when I got home from school.

The next day, she found the popular girls and it was like I had never existed.

I'm not exactly sure why I don't remember much about my childhood. Maybe my memory is just not the best. Mostly though, I suspect it's because I didn't think there was much worth remembering. My childhood felt both very full and very empty. I never lacked for things to do, but I often felt pretty lonely doing them.

I do remember my first house. The memories are pretty fuzzy because we moved when I was 11, but I remember it was a split level with lots of brown and orange and mustard yellow leftover from previous owners. The basement had a room I called the "map room" because my dad had wallpapered a giant map of the world along one wall. That room had a ping pong table and my parents would stash things under it and call it our "attic". My dad's brown couch from his bachelor days was in the basement with the NES, along with a hexagonal poker table that he'd occasionally invite friends over to play cards on.

I spent a lot of time on the screened-in porch, which overlooked our big, fenced-in backyard. I had a little PlaySkool bench where I colored and painted.

The backyard had lots of trees in it - so many that the ground had a permanent carpet of dead leaves all-year-round. I remember attempting to rake them all up once, but when it took me over an hour to get even a 2 square meter spot cleared, I gave up. That spot became my imaginary house, which I carpeted with moss and kept relatively clear of leaves, at least for a little while. There was a wood swingset to play on and a rope hammock to lay in and look at the tops of the trees or read a book. One time I asked for a zipline as a birthday present and my parents strung it up between two trees - though it didn't take long to realize that there wasn't much zipping to be found when the trees were so close together and you had to lift your feet above your waist to get any airtime.

The front yard was less remarkable, though there was a small maple tree with bright red leaves. In part as a tribute to my paternal grandfather who used to grow tomatoes in his yard, my mom often liked to grow cherry tomatoes and flowers in the front yard.

Strangely, I remember almost nothing about my bedroom. I know it had lacy curtains that I hated. I think it had yellow walls, and my comforter was clown-themed. But I don't remember spending all that much time in there. For some reason it never really felt like "mine", it was just the place where I slept. Maybe that's why I was always trying to carve out my own spaces in other places, like the backyard or the basement. Or maybe the intense need for my own space became more pronounced when I was a preteen. But at a time when my peers were so cold, that house always felt open and warm to me, with all kinds of nooks and crannies and hidden spots that I could make my own.

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* Names changed to protect whoever.