Lost

The roles we played in childhood are the roles we hold onto when we’re adults.

For the most part, I’ve forgotten how I was when I was a kid.  Sometimes I’ll have intermittent rememberings, especially when prompted by questions from Kenny,

“When you were little like me, did you. . .” 

Fill in the blank.  Did I like trains, ice cream, or snowflakes?  And for a moment, I think back. 

And in the next exhalation, it’s gone.

Last week, my mom prompted me to think back a little longer than I normally do when she gave to me a card including the text of a lead she gave during her weekly Al-Anon meeting.  She wrote she was making amends to me, a “lost” child.

This made me think beyond being, as Kenny would say, little.  As I was growing up, I assumed my  “alone-ness” had more to do with location than my mindset.  Living miles out of town required creative transportation, so I blamed my social ineptness on circumstance.  There was no Facebook or cell phone to keep me connected to my friends, and it seemed that every call from Pitts Road was long distance. 

Regardless of the social limitations, I just liked being alone.  I liked my solitary time on the railroad trestle behind our house. It was there I dreamed big dreams of what life would be like if I were beautiful, articulate, and famous once I shed my caterpillar khakis for a butterfly makeover.

If I truly was lost, did growing up in an alcoholic home cause me to go missing or was I born lost? 

Although distressing to my mom, I’ve explained to her that I liked being lost. It sounds especially enticing now as I think of my adult life, in a house two sizes too small, packed to the rafters with my children and their friends.  Getting lost now is nearly impossible.

As for my brother impacting my role as a lost child, I’m not too quick to point any of my fingers.  In my own created family, I can see in all my children traces of a lost child, mascot, hero, scapegoat, and placater.  Family equals dysfunction, and children, for better or for not, are included by default. 

Today, Morgan Street is my grownup train trestle and it’s currently where I dream my big dreams, as well as now the dreams of my children.  Being beautiful or articulate doesn’t much matter anymore; my dreams have become more inclusive.

As for my mom’s regret over my being lost, no worries, I knew where I was all along.  And like a cat, I always came home when I got hungry.