The Story of A Little Girl – Part II

When we left the little girl she was getting ready to move to a new home far away from where she was then living.

The family did most of its traveling at night so the little girl, her brother and sister would sleep most of the trip. All that the little girl understood was that they left their home and she woke up in a new place, some place strange called a motel. It consisted of a big bedroom with two big beds and one small bed and a bathroom. Was this their new home? "No," she was told. They would just be there for a few days while they were waiting for their furniture to arrive.

She has one vivid memory of that short interlude, and it concerns her brother. One evening after eating dinner they were allowed to choose a desert. The little girl's brother, who was a year younger than her, chose strawberry shortcake. He was told it was a big desert, but that was what he wanted and that was what he got. When the little girl saw the desert, she could not believe her eyes. It was a mountain! It was at least 5 inches high and 6 inches in diameter! The little girl, her mother, her father, her sister, all the other diners in the restaurant, and the staff watched stunned while her little brother ate the whole desert! It was a story told for many years and became a family legend.

Soon the day came to move into their new house. Today, the woman who was that little girl, would know it was a ranch-style house with an attached carport. There were lots of trees around the house, but no Willow tree. No big tree to sit under and play. But there was a backyard and it was a great backyard!

The house sat on a hill and the backyard sloped down the hill. The backyard could be gotten to from either the front yard going around the side of the house or from the screen porch in back of the basement. Several feet from the screen porch the property dropped suddenly to a terrace which went about the width of the property. To the little girl, who had no sense of size yet, it seemed a mile wide and 2 miles long, but was probably only about 50 feet wide and maybe 75 feet long from the terrace to the bottom of the hill. At the bottom of the hill, there was a short flat area that led to some trees and the trees bordered a small creek. The hill was great for laying down on the grass and rolling downhill in the summer and for riding cardboard sleds and trashcan lids downhill on the snow in the winter. There were trees and bushes and bracken along each side of the property. On one side there was honeysuckle and, in the summer, the little girl used to pick the flowers and taste the honey. Also in the summer there were fireflies in that backyard and the little girl and her little brother and sister used to like to catch them. It was a magical place for a little girl.

She bathed in the magic for the rest of the summer before school started. She grew to like her new home. She met some of the other kids in the neighborhood. She even made friends with a little girl down the street. That little girl's daddy worked with her daddy. Though she was a year younger, the same age as the little girl’s brother, the two of them became friends.

When school started, she made a few more friends, but these were friends that she only played with at school because they didn't live in her neighborhood. But soon having "friends" paled against the greatest discovery in her life so far.

In the school where they used to live, she had learned the basics of the alphabet and very simple words. Now, in the second grade, she would begin to expand her vocabulary through reading. As her vocabulary expanded, so did her appetite for reading. In many ways, this appetite would become an addiction. In time this addiction and her natural curiosity would lead her to read almost everything she could lay her hands on: fiction, nonfiction, biography, philosophy, religion, New Age, decorating, cooking, crafting and even product labels. But right now she was in the beginning of her addiction and her love for reading began to expand her vocabulary far beyond that of the other children her age. Even the adults around her were often surprised at the advanced words he used. She also found that books were much more interesting. She felt safe with them. Even at this early age, she found that she could go anywhere a story could take her. This discovery was especially important, as she found that she was not very athletic and not very good at the games the other kids played and what was worse, when it came picking teams, she was always the last one chosen. This was very painful for the little girl.

The children choosing did not choose her last out of meanness. They were trying to build the best team possible. But the little girl who had never done much socializing with other children, interpreted this as a form of rejection and was angered by it. To avoid the rejection,  she no longer played with the other children and spent more and more of her time reading or just avoiding the other kids. The little girl was not lonely; she did have her books, but she was not learning how to play and build relationships with other people. This pattern would cause problems later.

The little girl had now created two life challenges. She would need to redefine her definition of home, hearth, and stability. She would also need to learn that she couldn't build her identity by an unqualified acceptance by others, but rather through her acceptance of herself. she also needed to learn to accept others as they were.

Third-grade brought its own challenges.

The Story of a Little Girl – Part I

There was a little girl that did not like change. She was a happy little girl even if she seemed somewhat serious to others. She lived in a small house on a corner lot. There was a large willow tree in the front yard. It was the perfect place for a little girl to play. Actually all the children love to play there. Her mother liked to sit underneath the willow tree in the summer, while all the kids in the neighborhood played around her.

The little girl delighted in making mud pies. They were her specialty, and if she couldn't be found playing under the willow tree with its protecting branches she could be found in the dirt, making her specialty mud pies

Her best friend lived next door. There was a short split rail fence separating the two properties. She and her best friend would stand on the bottom rail and hang their arms over the top rail and talk and talk and talk.

It was a different time then. Children could play outside in their front yards without fear of strangers. The little girl's house was set high above the street, or at least it seemed so to the little girl. From her high vantage point she could look down on the traffic safely, not that there was that much traffic.

It was perfect, everything a little girl could ask for. Then one day the house was gone. The tree was gone. There was no dirt for the mud pies. The fence was gone. And the best friend was gone. There was a new house.

The grown woman who was that little girl remembers little of that house. Her only clear memory was that there was a sidewalk in front where she learned to roller skate. she had no friends that she can recall and doesn't remember anyone her age, living close by. When the grown woman who was that child looks back on her memories of that house her mind gets an overlay of gray.. The grown woman would tell you that that was negative energy overlaying the house.

It was the house the family lived in, but it was never a home. The house just never felt right and the only memory she took away was that this is where she learned to roller skate.

Then, they moved again. This place was very different. The little girl can remember standing across the street and looking at her new home. There was sunshine all around. The house floated in the sunshine and there was something else. The grown woman that was that little girl would say that there was a heavenly presence around that little house It was a pretty house and even at the tender age of six, she thought that the name of the street, Rosewood Circle, fit the house perfectly. She doesn't remember a lot of houses around them. She does remember a lot of open area in which to play. There weren't any trees, at least like the willow tree she still remembered.

There was a vacant lot she used to walk to and one day she found something very amazing! Wild asparagus was growing in the field! Up to this point she could take or leave asparagus, but this was so amazing she had to pick it and take it home to her mother. Her mother cooked it and the little girl has never forgotten the taste of it to this date.

She can remember no children her age to make friends with in the neighborhood and so she learned that she preferred the company of adults to that of children. Oh, there were children in the neighborhood, but they were all younger than she was and for the most part that meant they were boring playing their “little kid” games.

All in all, the little girl was happy. She would have been content to stay there for the rest of her life. But life is nothing if not change, and one day the little girl found that this home was to be no more.

This was too much for the little girl. She craved stability. She craved a place that was safe and warm and constant. Three homes in seven years was too much. At least it was too much for this little girl.

The grown woman who was that little girl, knew the little girl had not had it all that bad. There were many children who changed homes every year, if not every few months. There were children who moved to places where they didn't even know the language. But the little girl didn't know that. The little girl couldn't know that. And frankly, the little girl wouldn't have cared. After all, she was just a little girl.

"They" say that personality and behavior patterns are pretty much set by the age of seven. If so, what had the little girl learned?

She had learned that she couldn't count on friends to stay in her life. She had learned that no home was permanent in her life. At the tender age of seven she had learned that it was best not to make friends that way you didn't have to leave them. She had learned that she also couldn't count on "home."

The Soul craves what the Sole craves. The little girl didn't know why she needed home why she needed friends why she needed stability. The grown woman understands that these were urges she came with at birth. In looking back, the grown woman who was that little girl, realizes that there were lessons for the little girl and she was not learning them. In her fear and self pity, she had cut herself off to learning those lessons. It would take many years before she learned those lessons.