I wonder if my tendancy to do things later in life than everybody else has something to do with the two really nice people who let me live in their house while I was growing up. I completely blame them for encouraging my weirdness by letting me be a kid and not rush me to grow up. Most things I would declare they got right, but once in awhile something went terribly wrong, like being dressed in an outfit that should have been burned. Let me expound. Hang around.
Okay, all of you kids who were elementary school age in the 70’s will know exactly what I’m talking about. We didn’t care how we looked; too groovy striped bell bottoms, mismatched colors, and Bad News Bears tossled hair-do’s. All we wanted to do was go outside and play. For me, add homemade clothes into the mix. Now my mom made me some really cool beautiful clothes that I got to help pick fabrics and trims for on occasion and I did like most of them. My aunts and grandma on my dad’s side made and still make their own clothes, afterall. I didn’t realize how unusual that was. It was very normal to me.
But there was a gem of a garment that just didn’t need to be created in the first place. Enter the white colored cordorouy with red patterned mystery fabric. Mom decides I just had to have a dress out of this crap. It was just wrong, wrong, wrong. I never liked wearing it and it very well was because I was in 5th or 6th grade by this time and all the kids were starting to care how they looked, but not me. I would wear it anyway and the daily fight at school would happen where I would punch or kick some wiseacre for saying anything about that stupid dress. whatever. I was not embarassed by my fashion, I just simply did not care. I was too busy dreaming and coloring and playing tetherball.
And then there were the godaweful polyestermess that were two pairs of identical pants that I wore on a regular basis in 7th grade at Lake Jr. High School. Knowing full well that I would get teased mercilessly that day, I wore them anyway. I did not care, I could take it. That is how much I would rather play with my Barbies or do other things. By the way, I think I was the last to stop playing with toys at 17. And the list of my delayed human activities continues.
I sucked my thumb until I was 8, but only at night, and I remember declaring triumphantly to my teacher Mrs. Jones when I had stopped. I sometimes wonder what she really thought when all she said was, “Oh, good for you.” In 6th grade I didn’t want to start wearing a bra, but my body forced me to and so I succumbed to that over the shoulder boulder holder that I’ve always hated. I didn’t date in high school because boys scared the tar out of me. I didn’t drink or party like so many of my classmates did. I’d rather play with our dog or eat pizza with my friends. I had my first kiss at 16 at a stupid birthday party. Remember “spin the bottle”? Yea, it was that bad. I never liked or did the whole “club scene” for dating and would rather watch movies or play board games at home. I got married at 33, well past the age of all my other friends who had started families in their 20’s.
Look what you did to me! My weirdness is all your fault because you incubated me in homemade clothes, homemade school lunches, nightly dinners and reading, and popcorn Fridays. Geez Mom and Dad, you are totally to blame.