I don't think I would have been shy or as shy if I hadn't had whooping cough at age 2 and almost died. My parents said before I had whooping cough I was really intense and demanding as a child. But, after almost dying for several months they said I would look out at the ocean there in Seattle and cry.
Almost dying for months might do that to a person at any age but more so that young because you have no idea what is going on and have very little detailed knowledge about life yet. So, mostly you are just overwhelmed and scared at what just happened to you.
So, I tended to be very polite and caring and compassionate to people after that but underneath it all I was angry at having to go through that. When other kids in school acted out and when one teacher lifted the boys up by their ears when they disobeyed her (before she was forced to retire from doing this) and the boys screamed in pain from being lifted up by their ears in public school, I wasn't one of the boys that was ever punished. I did what I was told by my teachers because I needed them to like me. However, after school this was another matter. I would climb trees, stand on my bicycle seat while I rode my bicycle from age 5, ride with no hands, climb trees, pick up cigarette butts and smoke them between ages 5 and 9 years old (because we thought we were being cool, and everything else boys did then (which is somewhat different than a lot of boys now). And sometimes older boys would bully us or try to kill us with knives. But, mostly we found ways to get away. I always thought some one should kill them. But, a friend said it shouldn't be me because I was too smart for that. But, we also knew in those days it was inevitable that someone was going to kill them before they were 20. That's just how it was back then. It's not that way as much now though.
I remember we had to square dance in school from about age 9 or so with the girls. It was supposed to teach us to be polite to girls and be more gentile I guess. I sort of found the whole thing embarrassing more than anything else. One of the girls saw me all dressed up for church in a restaurant one day on a sunday and that week asked one of her friends to ask me to go steady. So, I guess she was fixated on me but I said, "NO." It was embarrassing to dance with that girl when we had to square dance after that. But, I wasn't ready at 10 to "Go Steady" or date anyone. I knew people who were having sexual intercourse at 9 or 10 but it seemed sort of crazy to me and we would sing to them this song and tease them about it, "John and Judy sitting in a tree, k-i-s-s-i-n-g. First comes love, then comes marriage, then comes John with the Baby Carriage." Sometimes when a group of us did this to people they would cry and run away. Things were a lot different than than now.
So, I guess what we were doing is trying to shame them into realizing that they were 10 years old and not 16 and ready to get married.
People got married and had babies often then by 15 or 16 which is a lot different than now. So, trying to make people more aware of the consequences of their actions was pretty important.
I remember being in a drug store and seeing two of my friends with a baby and wanting to throw up or scream when we were all 16 years old. They wanted to talk to me and show me their baby and I was screaming inside because I was completely shocked and unprepared for this moment. I knew I wouldn't be ready for something like this until my mid 20s which was true.
However, that same year when I was 16 I got together with a girl 21 from my church and bought myself a 56 ford Station wagon that I called my "Surf Wagon" because we would put our 10 foot 2 to 10 foot 4 inch boards in and they would be hanging out the back with the rear door partly open because they were so long driving to Malibu where we would surf or free dive or SCUBA dive whenever we weren't working at our part time jobs which allowed us all to have cars and gas money then.
But, not being ready for marriage at 16 or 18 cost me a relationship eventually. In fact, it cost me two relationships with girls I would have married because I just wasn't mature enough at 18 to do that. But, looking back now maybe that was a good thing in the long run. If you make yourself do something that you are emotionally not really ready to do often you ruin people's lives around you, often your spouse and any children you have.
So, waiting until I was actually ready to be married at 26 was likely a good thing.
No comments:
Post a Comment