Writing my memories: What is real?

I realize that part of my writing the story is an attempt to be heard, to be believed and accepted. And I fear that should I ever publish beyond a blog that no one reads, I would be unable to handle all the negative reactions. I realize I want my daughters to believe me. But I also know that telling this story, my story, is not about who hears, who believes, who accepts it as true. It is about being able to articulate and claim my own life and history. It is for me.

I don't have any celebrity men to name, I don't even (much) care about shaming my husbands or lovers. Their problems are their own story, not mine. It's not about who they were or what they did. For me it is about how I experienced it, allowed it, hated myself for what happened; and how, now, I'm beginning to understand that I may not need to carry all the shame and guilt. Maybe I can write it out and that will help.

Mother said to me more than once that when she married, she wanted "to have six kids." Which may be one reason she had four kids right in a row. But at the time Cayce was delivered, she had her tubes tied. She did not want to answer my (5-year-old) questions about the the little scars on her belly. But maybe she accepted that this fond desire to be an earth mother, was not, in fact, something she was enjoying or wanted. And I, I grew up swearing to myself I would never have kids in case I turned into a mother like my own. Yet of all my siblings, I am the only one who has had children. And I often say it is the only thing I've ever done that was worth all the trouble.

Daddy didn't often talk to me about (anything, really) what he wanted, until he was able to talk about how he had "always" wanted to work for a newspaper. Mr. Kirkpatrick the editor of the Constitution lived across the street when he was growing up. And Daddy got back from the war, got married, and went to work for the newspaper. He spoke about going from the rank of Captain on the battlefield to becoming a "copy boy." "Copy!" some reporter would holler, and he would go running. Actually, of course, he was bright and talented, and started reporting, covering stories. He worked on the copy desk, he did rewrites, composed headlines, proofread, and took dictation. He had just been promoted to City Editor, according to the news story he saved in his scrapbook, when the Marines called him back to another war.

In another scrapbook, I found mementos of his one writers conference. To give up his writing ability, the facility with which he put strong opinions into clear words, and instead try to deal with the politics and hierarchy of the military life seems horrible to me. I find his decision to stay in USMC heartbreaking. Still, he was also a drunk, and goodness only knows what would have become of all of us had he chosen instead the fulfilling and yet peripatetic life of a writer.

Now Mother was a talented writer, too, but as far as I know never even considered professional writing or even pursuing an education as a writer. Any more than I did, sadly. Because writing is what I do, I think it's the best thing I do. But here it is hiding in the bushes, just at home, a hobby.

While I think I am remembering my life and my parents and my siblings, at the same time, I think I have to acknowledge that I am really just making up a story about us all, my story about my life and the people I love, who, as in a dream, are not really themselves but are all me. These memories are the reflections of the real people, but I am controlling or selecting the way I see them and present them.

FIRST MOLESTATION MEMORY--how real is it?

This is the memory I have "reconstructed," but now I don't think I am right about it. When I was 5 years old, my Daddy was called up to go to Korea and fight. My mother took me and 2 baby brothers and moved out west to San Diego to wait for him with other wives of Marines. She was having a pretty good time, I guess, and hired a babysitter for us while she socialized with those wives. Seems healthy, except after the second time the babysitter was with us, some grownups started asking me about him and why I drew naked pictures with no hands. I do remember he insisted I take a bath even though it was not bath night. I remember the time with discomfort.

PHOTOGRAPHIC EVIDENCE:

After reviewing the photos from my father's scrapbook 1951 to 1955, I find no record of our family being in California, until after Daddy returned from Korea and we moved to Camp Pendleton, near San Diego, in 1955 when I was 5. So I guess my memory above is not accurate.

I know I remember the babysitter man, and I know I remember the pictures I drew and the baths I was forced to take. I hate baths. I remember there were questions by a grownup or two. I don't know where we were living, and I don't know whether my dad was in the US or overseas. I don't know how old I was, except I'm pretty sure it was before Cayce was born. But who knows? I guess I'll have to revise this. But something happened. My mother would never talk about it, except to make veiled references to some terrible thing she allowed to happen to my brother John. Right. Not anything to do with me, but my brother was damaged by her negligence in some unstated way. I knew not to ask questions. Mother didn't like questions.

My last therapist suggested that not only was my molestation affecting my life, but maybe also my mother and my brother had been molested.