As I walk around my home, I realize there is only one picture on my wall. It’s of my oldest grandchild. There is a clock, and two pieces of rustic art, which I think I should just throw out. I’ve been wanting to downsize for a long time now, but the task is overwhelming. Maybe talking about it now will light my spark again.

Why is this relevant to my past?

I’m not sure. Perhaps it’s because when I try to think as far back as I can, I see a bulletin board with random pictures on it. There are even a few scraps of papers and an article or two, but I can’t read them. They are long-lost and only fragments of what they once were.

The things that stand out the most are a picture of a dog, but I’m not sure it was ever ours. There is a small child sitting on an adult’s lap. They are sitting on a white chair, at a white table. I remember that man. He was a friend of my Father. He’s wearing a button-up shirt. It’s denim-coloured, and he’s wearing blue jeans. I even remember his name.

There is a mural on the wall behind us. It’s a mural of a forest. It’s nothing special. It’s only trees. It looks like it might be fall. There are leaves on the ground. They’re mostly shades of yellow, and I can’t see the tops of them.

If my memory serves me correctly. This mural was preceded by another one. It was also a forest, but the focus was on the creeks running along the ground. It was also somewhat fall-looking. I remember liking this one much better.

There were cool streams with small steps of miniature falls intertwined with each other. It held my attention, still to this day.

Does anyone remember this era?

This was roughly around the time when people decorated with mirrors to make the rooms look bigger. Wood paneling was popular. Velvety furniture in shades of gold, rust, and brown were all the rave. If you didn’t have a shag rug, you were living in another dimension.

Ours was rust-coloured, and our velvety sofa was gold.

We had a mural on the wall in the dining room. The rest of the walls were yellow. There was a field with wild strawberries behind our house. It was a three bedroom house that was offered to us by the company my father worked for. Those were the days. We lived in a remote location, and there had to be incentive to get people to live and work there.

According to the Census, there was just under two thousand and three hundred people living there. We were nested in the upper Northwestern corner of our world.

My two older sisters shared one room. It was across the hall from our Parent’s. I had the other one, beside my sisters. My brother, who was the oldest, was in the basement.

I remember being scared of basements. I used to sing loudly whenever I had to go down there. For some reason, I believed monsters were appalled by the sound of children singing. It kept me safe from them—my superpower. I have no idea where that idea came from.

All-in-all, we were probably a normal family. It consisted of two parents and four kids. It was three daughters and one son, and one bathroom. It’s hard to forget. One of my sisters was always in the bathroom, and I remember it being an issue for the rest of the family.

Seems pretty normal to me.

My brother was the oldest. The next year, my oldest sister was born. The year after that, my other sister was born. I’ll call her the younger sister. Hopefully, this will help clarify things when I refer to my siblings. I have one brother, an older sister, and a younger sister.

Eight years later, I was born. Already, I’m out of the loop. I have no idea what life was like before I arrived. I am the true babe of the family. The most unique and imaginative one of the bunch yet. I even decided to make my grand entrance on my younger sister’s birthday.

That’s right! I will not be left out! She was turning eight that year.

Naturally, I have no memory of this.

So, what do I say about those early years?

There’s nothing to pinpoint, really. I was young, just starting to learn the basics, and completely clueless about what was going on around me.

I had to share my birthday with my sister. She got cakes from her friends; I had to share mine with her. I only got one cake, and I had to share it. Don’t get me wrong. I loved my sister. She was the coolest, and luckiest person I ever knew.

She always seemed happy, she smiled a lot; she was like the mother I never had…

I don’t really have any bad memories of that time. I got in trouble for drawing all over the yellow walls with a purple crayon. I believe I drew on the dresser too. I can’t remember if I did this in the hallway, my bedroom, or both. My mother had to clean it. That’s about all I remember.

My father drank a lot. My mother yelled a lot. My brother and sisters were always out with their friends, and I was oblivious to everything around me.

I had these vivid stories of living in a huge house before coming to my parents. There was a sunken living room, and I had a huge bed, all to myself. I think I might have been alone in these stories. I might have had a bit of trouble discerning the difference between my imagination and reality.

I could have sworn I knew how to fly once. I remember moving my legs and arms so fast that I levitated above the ground! My bed subtly shook at night. I believed it was the ghost in my closet rocking me to sleep. It only cared about me, you know. I was its favourite.

There was a crack in the corner of the closet, and in that crack, there was another world. I remember canyon-like drops and orange hues while light dust or sand blew in small clouds. Monsters lived there, but these were the nice ones. They were there to protect me whenever I was in trouble.

I’d gather my stuffed animals around a small table, and we’d drink tea and have lunch. Sometimes, I was their teacher. Each one had a different voice, and I did the speaking for all of them.

This confused my mother. She would think I had friends over, only to find I was in my room, by myself.

I had a small electric piano. I even wrote a song.

My mother was offended and disgusted by it. It might have had more truth than she could swallow. It seemed pretty normal to me. I didn’t understand why she was so upset by it. It was based on everything I knew. My brother liked it.

I had a stuffed doll that may have been almost as big as me. It was a fuzzy doll in the likeness of Curious George. I learned how to spell and do basic math before I went to school. One of my Mother’s various jobs was as a substitute teacher. I remember her bringing the curriculum home and teaching me.

I also remember my father raising his voice at my oldest sister at the dining room table because she wasn’t grasping what he was trying to teach her. He was getting frustrated while she cried. She was always the emotional one. Then again, she was learning stuff far more advanced than A is for Apple.

During this time, there was only one really exciting thing I remember happening to me. I believe it is the only thing that stands out from those pre-school years. I wanted to go to school. My older siblings went. They had so many friends and did so many things I was missing out on. I was already learning what grade one and two was learning. I was ready!

I made a plan and ventured out. I followed my older siblings as cleverly as I could when they left for the day, but I think I got side-tracked as I so often do.

I’m not sure what happened next. The only real thing I remember was a police car showing up as I was making my way up the hill. It was a huge hill, still untouched by man and full of trees. The car pulled over to the side. The officer in the vehicle asked if I wanted a ride. There may have been two officers, but I only remember one.

My mother always told me never to accept rides, or anything for that matter, from strangers. I got in a lot of trouble when I accepted a can of pop from a known stranger once. His name was preceded by the word, ‘Crazy.’ This was an officer though, so it was okay. I happily accepted and hopped in the back seat. Wow. This was really cool. I got to go for a ride in a police car! Who in their right mind wouldn’t want to go for a ride in a police car?

I felt like the luckiest kid in the world.

Much to my dismay, they took me right back home and told my mother they found her daughter. I don’t even remember if I got in trouble. All I remember was being unbelievably disappointed.

I think it was shortly after that when I decided I would leave prank notes all over the house telling my family they were being invaded by aliens. That would teach my alien-obsessed mother!

Much to my disappointment, they were on to me.