Back and Forth

I used to think babies came out of women’s belly buttons.  I guess the fact that my mother confirmed this misconception didn’t help my quest for truth at all.  So amazed was I that a baby could make it out of that tiny hole.  “It stretches,” my mother explained.

I also used to think that if you got married, you automatically had a baby.  So I wanted my mom to get married again because I wanted a little brother or sister.  I guess the fact that my dad was an unpredictable and raging alcoholic didn’t pose any obstacles, at least for me.

I used to think that all dogs were boys and all cats were girls.  I guess it would make sense that I thought they got married to one another and the girl cats had babies out of their belly buttons, except I couldn’t seem to find a belly button on any of the neighborhood cats.  I didn’t have a cat to examine because my asshole dad didn’t like cats.  He didn’t really like pets at all.  That’s not a good enough reason to call my dad an asshole; I had others.

For a couple of months when I was eight years old, I thought that my eyes were crossing every time I closed them and that they were going to stay that way.  This posed considerable challenges when it was time to close my eyes and go to sleep.  It was painful to close my eyes; I was sure they went instantly crossed.

For a long time I used to want to be a figure skater.  I loved Dorothy Hamill and even got my hair cut like hers.  My sister called it a “wedge” cut.  Dorothy had dark hair and big, straight, white teeth just like me.  I liked her clothes when she skated.  I liked the sparkles.  I liked the way the shoes looked on her feet.  Watching her skate back and forth on the rink was so calming to me.  I was always looking for something to calm me down.  Still am.

Back and Forth.

I got an idea a couple days into my battle with nighttime eye crossing:  I would close my eyes and imagine I was ice skating.  I would watch myself skate back and forth and move my eyes under the lids - back and forth.  Watching would ensure that my eyes weren’t crossing.  I watched myself skate until I fell asleep out of pure exhaustion. 

I used to think I could chop someone’s head off using the paper cutter at school.  That if I could just get someone’s neck under there, I could “pretend” to drop the blade and it would cut straight through; clean.  Such a genius plan, but I could never get my dad to come to my open houses.

Little Battles Children Fight