I wrote a friend a letter today that turned into a diary entry:

Speaking of which, I got an interesting present from my Mom for Christmas: A video of home movies from my childhood. Kind of a holiday retrospective, if you will.

I've written about how interesting it was to see my parents as these young, fresh people. Which is true, I think it really was a side of them I hadn't seen before. They were so young and so out of their element. (Not to mention incredibly cute!) But there are other things I've noticed, too.

One thing is the "Before and After" effects of the accident on my mom. There's this vibrant young woman with a child and then suddenly this hobbled young woman who never smiles. Unfortunately, that's the mom I remember from my childhood: the one who's always in pain. It's better now, the last few years they've been able to do more for her, but she was a hard woman sometimes. Perhaps that's why I'm so soft with Max. I tend to baby him a bit.

I also noticed something I've noticed before: We were fucking poor. You get to actively see it. It's palpable. And yet, I never really felt like there was anything lacking in my life (until high school anyway, where everyone lacks SOMETHING). The end reel shows me standing outside the trailer we lived in on Dort Highway in Flint. This was no "mobile home" or "manufactured living space". It was a trailer and everything that brings with it. So there's about 5 minutes of film showing this girl standing in front of a trailer that looked battered and bruised even then. She's wearing an entire wardrobe of clothes that are too small and too worn and she's riding a plastic toy that is also too small. The yard is small, the porch is small, the sidewalk is small, the road is small. It's all tiny and cramped and trashy looking.

And I remember every inch of it.

It's funny, because I showed it to a friend, who is always teasing me about being "trailer trash". I think she was a little shocked to see how trailer trashy I really am.

There's a lot that's not in these movies, too. The fact that I don't remember a Christmas where my dad wasn't drunk on Christmas Eve. The night my mom had to leave me alone to go bail the Dolsen's dad out of jail, because he had all their presents with him. The mornings I would wake up and find Dad gone. Or wake up and find Dad there. As if nothing happened in between. (Whenever we get together, he spends a lot of time apologizing. It makes him feel better.)

If it sounds like I'm feeling sorry for myself, I'm not. I've pretty much come to terms with my childhood. I think I'm a person my family can be proud of. (Except my dad, who will only be proud of me if I accept Jesus Christ as my personal savior. Not likely to happen, sorry.)

I just found it interesting. A little part of the Caribou we know and love.