I remember growing up out in the country, just me , my brother and my 2 parents. Living in Advance, NC, down a long gravel road, next to a cow pasture and two chicken houses. That is a smell every city kid should have to experience and remember for the rest of their lives. I can still remember to this day, the time that we were moving away from there to come to the small town of Yadkinville. It was me and a few of my cousins riding on the back of my dad's truck, my mom and aunt were driving up front, while us kids were sitting on the back tailgate riding down the road (back when it was ok to do that sort of thing). And this huge spotted hog came barreling down the gravel road behind us & all us kids were trying to get it to chase after us. That is all I can remember of that memory. I have trouble remembering most of my early childhood, so I tend to rely mostly on other people's memories & recollections of it. The middle parts of my childhood into adulthood, I've tried to forget most of it & just tried blocking out all the bad stuff at least. But some things a person just can't forget or shouldn't.
Story has it that I was a puny little kid, a runt if you will. The doctors ran all kinds of tests on me, missdiagnosing that I would never reach the height of 5 feet or grow to weigh over 100 pounds if even that much. Even the pastor who helped to build our house & the houses in our neighborhood told them that I was too small to go to school, as they had to pick me up to put me on the bus, because I was too short to reach the first step. I was even supposed to be like the boy in the bubble, was allergic to everything that I came into contact with, they even told my mom to wrap my mattress & pillows in special plastic sheets and covers. So I kinda knew I was different from even an early age.
So began the long journey into my school days, bullied because I didn't seem to fit in. Shy, awkward, picked on for having a thick head full of hair & long eye lashes, everyone assumed that I was a cute little girl. Even mistaken me as my brother's little sister. Thanks goodness when puberty set in & boy did it ever!!! Hair growing in places where there probably shouldn't be hair & falling out of places where it DID belong. It was around the age of 14, shortly after starting high school, when I had noticed that my hair was falling out of my head in large patches, just running my fingers thru my full main of hair & would come out in clumps. It was shortly after graduation that I started shaving my head, fed up with the whole thinning - receding pattern it was making. But like a wise man once said, God only made a few good heads, the rest he put hair on!!
It was also the start of my freshman year that I got my braces... are you ready for this? Three rows of teeth! That's right, 3 rows. Not complete rows, mind you, but fangs that were protruding in front of my regular row & baby teeth in the back that were simply pushed out of the way for new ones & just never fell out. It was a nightmare to me, one reason why you will never find a picture of me smiling with an open mouth before that time. But glad to report that after those gawd-awful things came off, I am proud to smile for anyone & everyone that wants to see them. Have been told it is my best feature, not bragging, just convinced, he he. By the way, my brother is still upset to this day that I was able to get them & he wasn't. His grill was not as messed up as mine though, but still a nice smile when you can get one out of him.
My brother, my tormentor, my Idol - the one person that I always looked up to & tried so hard to be just like him. Though to know us, we are as different as night & day, but so much alike in many ways. Just ask us if we are related, and we will both deny it, but kinda hard to do when we get told repeatedly how much we look just alike. But of course, I have always been the pretty one, make no doubt about it! Thick as thieves, would kill for one another if we had to. And have, just ask us about our sister buried under the pool in the back yard of our old house (inside joke, the pool doesn't exist... anymore). But alas, it took us a long time to get to where we are today, with alot of heartaches & headaches. A major pain in my ... head, literally. But those are stories for another time, just brotherly love & we will leave it at that. I want to be just like him though, when I grow up. *(how do i get there from here)
Anyways, that is enough for tonight.... still a long ways to go & many more stories where these came from. Trust ME!!
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