Mrs.G: Chapter Two

Growing up

Where did you grow up?
 I was born and raised here in Cbus, in a little suburb called Hilliard. When I came home from the hospital we went to my Grandma's house. My parents along with my brother were living with her.

In the couple years before I was born my parents split up, and my Grandpa Hunter (paternal), went over to my parents house and packed up my mom and my brother and moved them in to he and my Grandma's house. Their was always a sense of disappointment with how my father handled the whole situation and my family didn't exactly keep their feelings to them selves.

A little over a year before I was born my mom and dad got back together but my Grandfather in the mean time took ill. He had a very aggressive lung cancer and it took him within a year. He died a year to the day I was brought home from the hospital.

My family still lived with my Grandma and in May 1987 my parents were starting divorce proceedings, I call myself a love child for this reason.

I can still remember the Ridgewood house, the tree in the front yard that I fought so hard to climb, always in vain. I was so little. I remember the basement being a perfect circle and my brother and I roller blading around and around, I remember the wall of mirrors in the dining room that would cause me to climb on the dining room table and use it as a stage.

When we moved out we bounced around from apartment to apartment until my mom bought the house I grew up in. I was 7 and we moved in to this new condo community on what was the outskirts of town. When we moved there it was the complex and a grocery store, McDonalds and the rest was just corn fields.

* cute fact* as we were building our house, my mom took my brother and I there one day to see the progress and they hadn't put the insulation up. My mom grabbed a pen and had us sign the walls in our bedrooms. I so very badly want to see that little hand written signature again*

What was your earliest memory?

I can remember back to when I was 4, their was a particular incident at my Grandmas house that was absolutely terrifying.

I was an odd kid, I wasn't scared of the dark, in fact I loved it and would search high and low for the perfect  dark spot such as a closet (where my mother would find me quite often). Then one day, while playing in the basement I came upon my Grandma's old upright, out of commission freezer. I thought to myself, it has to be as dark as a closet, IF NOT DARKER!!! So my little four year old self decided to try this out, I pulled open the door and climbed in.

Here is the thing, there is more than one reason fridges keep your food fresh, its not only keeping your food cold, but also keep air out.

Yes, I had just voluntarily locked my self in an air tight freezer. I remember the door shutting and not immediately being scared. There was a few moments of WOW THIS IS THE BEST DARK PLACE EVER!!! Then the air was used up. I can remember gasping for air, trying to feel around for door, then crying. I was terrified, my little mind didn't grasp that severity of this predicament because at 4 you don't really understand death. But I remember bracing  myself and kicking with all my might gasping for air.

I finally got the door open and I remember gulping air and bolting up the stairs. I was hysterically crying and when I rounded the corner in to the living room I remember the look on my mom and grandma's faces. They had been catching up one minute and the next trying to decipher what happened from a screaming 4 year old. I dragged the downstairs and they saw the door open on the freezer and little scuff marks from my shoes on the walls inside.

Looking back this all happened in a matter of minutes but in my fearful mind it was hours, if not days.

I don't mind the dark, but to this day I don't like being in basements much or tight spaces.

What games did you play?
I had to do a lot of make believe growing up. My brother didn't really want his pesky little sister around so it was usually me playing dress up.

My grandma gave me a bunch of her old dresses from the 1950's and I would grab that and my old Fischer Price record player and my grandmas Andrew Sisters record and pretend my family had to escape city bombings in during WW2.

Or I used to move in to the bathroom and set up my bed in the tub and pretend I had this little cabin in the woods.

Next up: The teenage years.