Rooms from childhood
I am reading 'The Middle Place' by Kelly Corrigan which flashes back between chapters....a chapter referring to her childhood and then the next about married life and her battle with cancer. It is a very good read so far.
Her descriptions of her childhood got me thinking back a fair bit. Also her take on being a mother and her feelings whilst battling cancer, which fortunately I do not have....but how she has to juggle how she feels and acts and the memories she is making of being a good mother to her children.
It not only made me think back to growing up but also to think of the present and the way my own children will remember what is going on around us now.
I am not sure of my earliest memories. At one stage I had an image of being a baby...in a hospital bed..being held by a beautiful woman with long dark hair....and then later when I found out the identity of my birth mother and saw what she had looked like at the time, it was very very similar.
I remember starting school at age 4. And having a much older mummy than everyone else. And other kids asking me if she was my Gran (ha! How right they were!) and even back then I felt very uneasy explaining the situation. But I knew I was adopted. Was told at an early age I suppose. I used to believe my adoptive mum was really a witch and my real mum was a Princess (ha again) who would come back for me soon (quadruple ha!).
Apparently we had moved out of shameful neighbourhood where the out of wedlock pregnancy had occurred. (That would be me in -the womb) We moved to the other side of UK where we had a 3 bedroom semi detached house which I remember having a HUUUGE garden. Last time I was in UK (2005) I dorve past and was surprised how regular sized it all looked. We had a small hallway with a staircase . a front room with a bay window, a backroom with a dining table, a kitchen where there was no room for a table and we had a sunlounge/conservatory added on that I recall being quite a dumping ground. Upstairs there was the one bathroom, and 2 good sized bedrooms and a box room. Tiny. I remember having that and I remember it was very cold in there. I had it wall papered with some green fairy wallpaper - the same as a friend also had in her bathroom - and there was a foam under paper used for 'insullation' purposes.....which I used to push my nail through at night until I fell asleep.
We moved when I was 10 to the other side of the city - a bungalow - even smaller. It was still me, my mum and my gran (then late 70s) who would later die in a bed moved into the lounge in that house. It was a tiny, thin hallway, a really small bathroom - two small bedrooms again - a dining room that was turned into a bedroom and a kitchen which then had an eating area. Again there was a sunporch built on - again very much a place to disguard bits and pieces - oh and was also had an attached garage built on - even though we had no car. It was not a happy house. I had the smallest room which was no big deal but I remember as it was a 'new house' I was not allowed to stick anything on the walls at all. Which during the teenage years was hard. I remember rows in rooms - I remember where I lost my virginity, where I made out with boyfriends, where I was given the ultimatum to stay or go. Where I was told to leave my keys when I was going abroad to work as an au-pair.. as the house would be sold (it never was). I hated that house and still when I go back it is a bad memory. It was tiny - we were living on top of each other when there was always tension - there was too much junk and stuff around as I think in some old fashioned way they believed the more possessions you had, the more comfortable you were. No one was ever invited in. If someone came they would be kept chatting at the door. Terribly rude but God forbid people would see how you lived.
When I moved in with hubby he lived in a tiny flat. The bedroom had a desk in it too which meant we had no space for a double bed. We had only a twin bed. The kitchen could not fit both a fridge and a washer. The lounge was only big enough for a 2 seater sofa but we had some very happy times there.
Even when I was away at University I only ever had a room in Halls of Residence but I loved it. The privacy. My own space. Things on the wall how I wanted - the freedom. It was amazing. I loved getting notes on my door from people who had called by when I was out..and was very close in my 1st year to my neighbours and we were forever in and out of each others rooms - it was the complete opposite of everything I had ever been brought up with.
And I think of how things are now for my kids. American houses are so much bigger and then some. I have seen town houses here but very few semis. Our house here is huge even by UK standards but my children would not register this. We have 4 full bedrooms on the top floor but one in the basement which we just don't use as one. We have 6 toilets for goodness sake. My kids will never understand the 'how long is she going to be in there for, I need to pee?' of a 1 bathroom house. Our garage is bigger than the first flat I lived in with hubby. The laundry room is bigger than my bedroom as a child....it just goes on and on. But it makes me sound like 'I remember when I were a lass....type' story.
We bought this house as it was a good deal...and we thought it even looked quite English. The realtor did not want us to buy it at all - she said the rooms themselves were too small - down stairs is quite open plan but it doesn't just all flow into one...which appeals to us but not necessarily to others. (To explain.....downstairs the 2 front doors open to a large hallway from where the stairs lead you to the next floor...there is also a large study, a reading room, a large family room with patio doors to the garden, a large kitchen with patio doors to the garden again, an eating area off the kitchen, a walk in pantry, a further hallway to the garage, a powder room, a laundry room, a dining room and another cloakroom - and two large closets and another staircase down to the basement). On the left of the blue front doors you have the dining room and Bee's bedroom above - to the right is hubby's study. Believe it or not we are the smallest house in the neighbourhood!!
Two of the boys share a room. Our kids have their own bathrooms upstairs which I would never have picked if I had built the house from scratch but that is what we got.
Last year I redecorated Bee's room whilst she was out of town....and I was very pleased with surprising her and the type of things she has in there. I would have died for her room as a child and maybe I was trying to relive my crappy childhood in making it better for her. I dare say that is what a lot of parents do when they don't have the happiest of childhood memories....
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