You know those times when you go home and do things you used to do when you were kids, like lay in bed with your sister at night talking and giggling? It’s actually a wonder I ever get to sleep in the same bed as Julie anymore since Josh can barely take his hands off of her. They are in ooey gooey mushy love, and they’ve finally mushed their gushy love into a bun in the oven. But let’s not get into those details.
My last night in Illinois a couple weeks ago Julie and I went to bed and the comfortable feeling of lying there together kicked off our nostalgic (and not-so-nostalgic) childhood reminiscing.
“Remember when we lived in that white house?” I asked. “I was four, and you were eight, and mom worked waitressing at Potters in town.” Of course she remembered. But I was eagerly and bitterly getting to a point here.
“Remember when we lived in that white house?” I asked. “I was four, and you were eight, and mom worked waitressing at Potters in town.” Of course she remembered. But I was eagerly and bitterly getting to a point here.
“Remember that time you wanted to go see mom at work, so you thought it would be a good idea to ride bikes? Only, we weren’t riding bikes. We were riding bike. Singular.” In fact, Julie strapped me to the back seat of mom’s adult bike. May I remind you of our ages? Four and eight. Do you know an eight-year-old who can ride and adult road bike with a child strapped to the back? Me either. This is early independence at its finest, folks. Where was our supervision? Julie laid the bike down on its side, strapped my silently terrified self into the seat atop the gravel driveway, mounted the bike upright, and thrusted forward with her eight-year-old legs on either side. We wobbled back and forth for a second while Julie tried to gain balance until this leaning tower of child-on-metal came to a crash on the gravel. Julie escaped. I, on the other hand, being unwillingly strapped to the bike like a four-year-old prisoner, had nothing but my teeny little hands to stop my head from bouncing off the gravel road. Crying and looking at the blood on my hands is my last memory as a four-year-old. I’m sure repressed memory syndrome had a lot to do with it. I did learn to hate that bike. Other lessons though, took me longer to learn such as thinking about what my sisters were trying to get me into before I brainlessly followed along. I’ll bet I was fun little sister.
That’s the thing about time. It heals all wounds. (Mostly). Perhaps that’s why we were able to lay there and laugh hysterically in the dark, picturing our sad little selves laying in that gravel driveway. However, I’m still a weenie about falling off a bike.
The bad bike memories don’t actually stop there. Add a couple of years, replace Julie with Kimberly, and keep that same awful bike. But that’s a story for another time.
I vow on this day to never strap my child into one of those terrifying plastic seats with nylon death straps. No no no.
