Day 2

Outline: I was born in small town in Wyoming to a young mother of 17 and a father of 19. I am the oldest child and have a sister that is 13 months younger than I am, as well as another sister 6 years younger. I am currently 31 years old and had been a victim of sexual abuse from age 7 to 16. I had also been witness to domestic violence, alcoholism and drug abuse, as well as being in lack of home, utilities or food many times.

My goal is to summon up my memories and write about them and how they make me feel. This will be a challenge for me because it is a struggle to remember my earliest memory clearly. I hardly remember ever being “happy”. Strangely, my memories are angled around what grade of school I was in or what house/apartment we lived in at the time. Below are some memories. I think I will just write them as I remember even if they are not in any order. After all, this is my page.

· I vaguely recall preschool – I remember eating pudding and playing on yellow ducks rockers. I remember my mom always watching soap opera shows on TV and eating the cheese puffs that were in a can.
· I faintly recall Kindergarten – I only have visions of apples.
· I know we went to church on Sundays. I recall Sunday school and singing “Jesus loves me”.
· One Easter Sunday when I was 5 or so, the church van picked my sister and me up to take us to Sunday school. At some point the van braked hard and I fell out of my seat and onto an old tire hubcap that was lying on the floor. I cut the palm of my left hand, under my thumb. I only remember how difficult it was to collect Easter eggs in the Egg Hunt with one hand. I would find an egg, put down my basket, pick up the egg, place it in the basket and pick the basket up again to look for another egg.
· I remember walking to school in the snow, no matter how deep. I must have been 6 and my sister 5 for us to being going to school together. There was a time that my sister and I were so cold and we had to start walking and we decided to warm our jackets up first. This was an old house that had one of those large four foot floor vents. Our jackets were similar to a ski jacket, I think. My sister and I laid our jackets on top of the floor vent, not knowing that it would melt our jackets. It did. I remember my mother being furious at us and I remember having no jacket.
· One time our shoes were in terrible condition, completely full of holes and falling apart in the sole, and the school nurse took my sister and I to a local shoe store. She purchased each of us a pair of shoes and several pairs of socks.
· I remember making balloon Paper Mache globes in school. We would blow up a balloon and then wrap them in the gluey strips of newspaper. Once they dried, we painted them blue and painted on the continents. I feel like this may have been first grade but it could have been second grade.
· Because winter was definitely “winter” I remember the time that I decided to taste the handrail at school. That was very silly because my tongue was stuck.
· I used to get so many nosebleeds at school. I remember always going to the nurse’s office.
· **HAPPY MEMORY** I remember having a “gramma” like lady who owned a donut shop feed us freshly baked and glazed donuts on our way to school. Of course, because of this stop, my sister and I were late to school often.