AUTOBIO 7-22-23 (For Patrons Only!) (Patreon)

At [age six], walking through Central Park with Mommy, I saw a Caucasian girl with long hair sitting on the grass playing a guitar. I was fascinated. I was in the big city, and I had sighted what I saw as my first “hippie”!! I stood and looked at her and she gave me a huge, generous, sincere smile, as real human beings do for kids. I was transfixed and still recall it; one of the few experiences in my life I want to recall. It seemed like pure, unqualified acceptance. I was just me and made her smile. If I had gotten more of that in my orbit, I know I would have been a more together human being. I love doing the same for kids now, because they need it. We all need it.

Peoples’ acceptance has always been hard earned, and qualified when won. Behavior, demeanor, appearance. It was always based on performance. It wasn’t just my being there. To this day, accepting acceptance has been like a tortoise struggling at the hard dash. This feeling seems to have been sealed at age seven. Total non-trust. The fear that anyone positive towards me would probably turn like a rattlesnake. To save face, I had to harm them first.

I had filled a loose leaf notebook with comics and lent them to a friend. When he returned it, he had drawn pictures of his own on the pages, copies of mine. He had also put in an alternative story to one of my own, which had a character losing a sweepstakes contest. He had drawn an ending where he won! This was all in tribute to me, a display of respect, but I chose to see it as defacement of my work. I berated him. I wanted to hurt him. Dear God, I wish I had been able to accept his compliment

It might have been before that that I found a Minnie in my Mickey coloring book already colored. I saw it as a trespassing and put squiggles on it, basically crossing it out. I didn’t know who had invaded my space. It was Mommy! I was supposed to color the Mickey. I apologized desperately, but she would show no sign of wholehearted forgiveness. I had hurt her without knowing it. It’s possible that she didn’t forgive me out loud so that I would learn a lesson. All I knew was that I had hurt her and there was no way I could make up for it.

Near this time, my mother patronized a Chinese laundry; what looked to me like a big place to my tiny small self.  The head man was behind a wooden counter. Inappropriately I asked the man why there was a huge mole on his face. He looked angry. My mom said I hurt his feelings. They towered over me. No apologizing I did was going to be enough. I wonder if my mother felt she could return there.

Kids say stupid things like that because they haven’t learned. Children are self centered because their world is so small. I feel I wasn’t allowed time to be that child. The one that didn’t know better. I had to learn fast.

I turned loving people away and tried to earn approval from people who were not at all good for me. Somehow, I felt, if I won their favor it would make me a legitimate human being. I realize now that my choices were no good for me and that these choices were, in fact, Star Trek illogical. The people whose favors I was trying to curry were not wonderful human beings. The had no qualities for me to truly respect. But they treated me the way that I had come to believe I deserved. All through youth and a good portion of my adulthood.

Why now? Why now am I aware of that instead of in my youth? Why couldn’t I get the help when I needed it most? It makes me sick.

I pinned my life on the drawing! It was the only thing about me that no one could contest. When they did, I was confident enough to know I was right and they were damn well wrong.