Childhood Memories

I was talking to someone very close to me recently, and the subject of childhood came up. It got me thinking of how I grew up and what it means to me. So, this is a summary of my childhood. Enjoy.

I used to think a lot on my childhood, and what I would do differently if I ever had the chance to go back and change things. I was born in California, and I was the youngest of 4 children. At 18 months old, I drowned and was in a coma for 3 days. I didn't know this until I was about 9, when my mom mentioned it. Before the age of 10, my family had moved close to 8 times. We've gone from California, to Washington, back to California, then to another part of california, then to Washington. All before I was a decade old. Within washington we moved 4 times. I remember living across the street from a lake, in an apartment complex. Those were good times. Even though it rained a hell of a lot, and that was probably detrimental to me socializing, especially with me moving quite a lot and having to make new friends so often. I took up reading around that age. I would spend most of my time inside reading a novel and getting wrapped up in it. I was a fucking sponge for knowledge and little facts of science and history. I would watch documentaries on physics with my dad, staying up late in the night.

We were poor. I'd like to put that simply, even though it was hard to understand growing up. I went some days without dinner. I shopped at thrift stores and felt ashamed because my peers thought that hand me downs were "gross". We recieved food and charity from local churches and food banks. We were on foodstamps for a time, as well. Growing up, my brother and I were attached at the hip. We are 20 months apart, look a lot alike, and couldn't get enough of each other. We would goad one another into doing daring things, and we spent our time together doing bullshit kid things. We would hide in tunnels where bums slept, we would throw rocks at oncoming traffic, and dive into murky ponds even though it was freezing out and we were barely 100 lbs soaking wet.


After washington, we moved to Arizona. I was 11 when we made the trip. My dad stayed in Washington to finish up things for his job, while my siblings and my mom took a van down. It was a hard move. It was the middle of the summer, and coming from washington to Arizona, it was a stark difference. I remember we did not have AC in the van, and we would keep the windows rolled up until we were sweating, as if in a sauna, then roll them down and let the breeze of the highway cool our bodies. I remember reflecting upon how the air itself was hot. It felt stuffy and I did not like it. We slept in that van for a long while, until we were able to get our own place. We only stayed in that place for about a month, before my dad finally came down to Arizona. While we were sleeping in the van, my mom would drop us kids off at the pool, and we spent hours everyday there. I never really thought about it, but my mom was probably begging or looking for some way to get help for us. I'm ashamed to talk about it now, but I remember my mom asking, begging, me to go with her to panhandle, as people who see a mother with a child are more lenient, and likely to give us the money we desperately needed.


We ended up in Mesa, Arizona. About a 30 minute drive from Phoenix. I was to go to Poston Junior High, for the 7th grade. School had already started a month ago, but seeing how we were living mostly out of a van, we didn't start for awhile. I remember being so young and so lonely. I wanted friends so fucking badly. I spent so much time in my own head, analyzing social interactions like a fucking robot. Self esteem issues were rampant in my psyche, feeling little self worth for some odd reason. I would ride my bike to Tempe, where Arizona State University is located. There's a lake there, and I would spend a lot of time gazing over the water thinking what I wanted to be when I grew up. In school, besides being in my head all the time, I would read through every single class. I would listen with one ear, being aware enough of my surroundings to do well on tests, but oblivious to everything else. It was easy, so I would not give any attempt to do well.


We moved 6 times during my middle school years. Thankfully, my dad finally put his foot down and promised that we would stay in the same school dsitrict until I finished highschool. I was sacrificed to social pariah in the 9th grade. My best friend at the time thought it would be funny as an april fool's joke to say that I recieved In School Suspension for masturbating in class. 3 hours later at lunch, the whole school was talking about it. It sucked, because no amount of reasoning would sway these adamant 14 year olds. But meh, such is life. I fell in love with a girl named Christine Adams. She was everything I wanted, and I made it painfully obvious. It's excruciating to look back on the way I acted. I was so pathetic. I ended up going to highschool and finally blossomed into the whole "not giving a single fuck" attitude. Someone didn't like me? "Shrug". It really ended up being in my favor, as teenagers seem to idolize the whole apathetic attitude.


I'm sure i'm painting a picture of someone who LARPs and has weird t-shirts and all that jazz, but it's honestly not the case. I drank with friends, I had my first girlfriend at 16, I was, to be honest, "cool". But not in the popular sense of "rich, therefor I have something people envy", but I was a good friend, I made jokes and was playful, and I was often the one with the best advice and ideas in my group of friends. So through being sincere, apathetic and humorous, highschool flew by. We moved 3 times during my highschool career. Shit happened, I was lonely a few times because I never really made an effort to correct my "forever aloneness". I thought girls didn't like me, but looking back it was obvious I just didn't see the signs. But, as mentioned earlier, such is life. The most growing up I did was when I lived with my sister my senior year. As evident in my blog, I was beginning to really bloom into the man I had envisioned I would become in the future (Although, to be honest, the military me isn't what I had thought.). I was going to school for 3 hours, then working as a secretary for the school district for 3 hours every day. Life was easy, and good to me.


When I think back on all of the heart ache and shit I went through to become an adult, I can't help but smile. Sure, I was hungry sometimes. (I remember when I lived with my sister, I had to find pennies on the ground so I could go get a single top ramen package to eat for that day.) I cried a few times, I had my heart broken a few times, and I was sure the world was going to end a few times. But, that's what growing up is. And I wouldn't trade it for the world. So, that's me, Katie. This is who David Allen Lindsey is. Welcome to my mind, I suppose?