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| Summer, 1957 |
And I want to return to a sweeter, more innocent time of life...when the only thing I worried about was which new song was going to be #1, what color-coordinated outfit I was going to wear the next day, or if I had done my homework correctly.
As you can see by the brick wall behind me in this photo (the front of our building,) we didn't live in a palace, but I never cared about that. In retrospect, the first ten years of my life were the happiest I can remember, and I cannot seem to find even a vestige of that kind of joy any longer. The simplicity of a little red portable radio was all I ever needed...and friends, so very many friends, all scattered to the winds now, if not dead and gone.
This is a very scary world in which to be alone. People think "family" guarantees company or some kind of mysterious and unbreakable bond, something I could never find within my own. I guess I was too much trouble and far too complicated a little person for most people to understand, embrace or tolerate. As I grew older, I'd take my books and walk to Botanical Garden, where I found comfort in reading, animals and nature .Or find solace literally 'up on the roof' where I could be alone with my thoughts, my feelings, and that aching loneliness that began to envelop and haunt my soul every hour of my life.
And as I grow older, I also began to learn how to hide it. I was never much good at doing that, my emotions were too powerful and overwhelming. But I did the best I could until all the tears of those early years came at me like a ferocious tsunami, and irrevocably broke something inside of me.
Most people fear death...not I.
As Katharine Hepburn wisely observed, "If nothing else, it's a long delicious nap."
And if there is a place called 'heaven,' I know precisely where and when mine will be.
And then, at last, I will be home again, free of all the grief and indescribable heartache of this thing called life.
