Writing 101: Day Eleven; Size Matters. Tell us about the home you lived in when you were twelve. Twist: Vary sentence lengths.

I wrote this assignment early today. I posted it as done. It didn’t feel right. It jumped all over the place. I was trying to find my voice, find my long vs. short sentences, and mostly was trying to find my way out of a corner. That corner is fear. I have to let me out, or there is no point in continuing with a blog of any sort. What good is paralysis?

I was adopted and it framed everything in my life. I’m trying to unframe it. I’m trying to finally heal while I head to my 60^th birthday. I’ve always tried to be what everyone else wanted me to be. Please everyone.  But not know myself.

So at 5 pm CDT I turned on the INSP channel. It was playing the first episode of the spinoff of “Little House on the Prairie” called “Little House: A New Beginning.” It opened with Charles Ingalls moving from Walnut Grove, Minnesota to Iowa to go where the work was. The rest of the family was already in Iowa. He was making the final trip from WG to IA, and asked the new owners if he could go in and see the sod house one last time.

The look in his eyes reflected what I felt when we moved from 2323 N. 53^rd to 510 S. 118^th. The memories were almost overpowering. I lived in that house from the age of just under 4 to 13. Too bad my first period waited until 118^th, it would have been cool to have it a part of 2323. Another passage.

What was learned the most at 2323, was how to compartmentalize life. To find places to put the pain. Got so very good at that. The infamous closet held at least 30% of the pain. Then there was the lilac trees outside, they got about 30%. The basement held the darkest ones at 30%, the balance was spread throughout the house.

If I continue to blog, one of the things that I hope to have happen is cleansing. Putting words to the things I need to and just have a funeral (not the same a burying) for the rest.

Adoption is one of the subjects I want to explore with others to see how similar/dissimilar other adoptees experiences are. My time at 2323 had the “adopted” word all over it. That is my scarlet letter.

That great address also holds the birth of my youngest brother. I felt like I was a mom, and had a job to do. He was born 10 days after my 12^th birthday, and why we moved from 2323 to 510 a year later. That final year in 2323 his crib was in my room. I was the one who got up in the middle of the night and did the diaper change and feeding. The nights he stayed fussy were the nights I finally put him in my bed, and we both slept like “babies.” And I still got up for school early in the morning. The 7^th grade sucked more than all the rest of grade school did (and didn’t think that was even possible), so having my baby brother in my room and my life helped me hold on to a feeling of being needed.

Leaving that house worried me in a way. It felt like it was a living, breathing part of me. I still pray, that until I’m ready, that 2323 still holds my thoughts sacred and secret.