Living Dreams part 1

(NOTE: this is a work in progress. Based on the true, real events of my life with the addition of a fictional world intertwined. The main Characters history is real, the fictional aspects will be quite clear... but I'm not about to deny or confirm their existence in this reality.)

She sat in a cushy chair in a ridiculously colorful office and tried to recall her earliest memory so she could begin to tell the entire story of her life to the ridiculously colorful therapist sitting behind her ridiculously colorful desk. Memory is not what people think. As a matter of fact it's not entirely incorrect to say that memory doesn't even exist. When we experience an event we gather information, process that information in a way that our brains found useful while evolving in the wild, and store it all as separate facts, not as a whole image or video clip. Our brains are not built for truth or accuracy, but for survival. Rather than explain this to the overly educated woman in the over sized red rimmed reading glasses, sitting in her oversized, quilt covered chair she simply decided to convey the truth as it existed in her own mind.

Again, this first memory, like all memory, is not, in fact, a memory of an event. It's a memory of a memory. The information stored may have come from multiple sources, a dream, or even a random passing thought. According to her mother it's the memory of the day she was brought home from the hospital to meet her siblings. This would have been within her first week of life and any doctor or scientist will tell you that a child so young simply can not form memories.

She told the lady with the blood red hair style that went out of style in the 80s and emptied the shelves in the health & beauty section at Wal-Mart about lying in her bassinet looking up at her oldest brother. She told her all about how she thought he was as tall as the stairs because she had not yet developed the ability to comprehend distance so her perception must have been different then that of a fully developed child. She clearly recalled seeing that his head was even with the top of the stairs. The image was not as three-dementional as the world around her seemed to be now. The stairs were small enough that it was obvious to her now that they were at least a handful of feet behind her brother, but they seemed flat. Like a child's drawing.
She told the Lady with Marge Simpson's large red beaded necklace all about the night she woke up in a crib in the dark and cried out in fear then giggled when her mother and grandmother nearly collided at the door.
She told her about the day that her mother told her to go to her friends with her two brothers while she went to the store. How all three children went there and were offered drinks. How she opted to go play outside first. How she tossed a ball with a girl across the street until it got dark. How she was then told by that child's father that the lady who was "watching" her had been gone all day. How he had seen her walk into the lady's yard before being called over by his daughter.
She told her how she ran home to find out that her brothers had both remained home that entire time and her mother had said nothing about her going to her friends.
She told her about the time she wondered through an orange grove (not old enough to realize the significance of living there, in a station wagon with her mother, father and three of her siblings) and saw two men, identical twins, whose two front teeth were so long they nearly reached their chests.
She told her about the Christmas that her families apartment caught on fire. How the tree and gifts had all burned up. She told about walking with her mother to the laundromat down the street to keep warm. About the young man who walked up to them, knowing nothing about the fire, with a plain cardboard box. He said he had won it, but had no use for it and asked her mother if he could give it to her little girl. Her mother nodded. He gently placed the box in her tiny arms. It's was so heavy she almost dropped it. She opened it up to find a life-like baby doll. Which just happened to be the one thing she wanted that Christmas.
She told the lady in the awful sea foam green top that she would go on to tell that story every December for the rest of her life because that was the best Christmas present she had ever gotten.
She told the lady with the bright red plastic smile about the day her brother was found hanging from a tree in his back yard. He was 23. She was 10 years old when this happened. She told the woman how she had been taken out of school early that day. How she knew something bad had happened. How she thought of the names of everyone in her family. How, when she thought of her brother she knew, without a doubt, that he was no longer alive. When she thought about people she could sense them in some way. Sense the general essence of who they are. Feel their consciousness. When she thought of her brother that day, on that long car ride home she began to cry. She sat in that seat, hiding her face, silent, still, seemingly calm and relaxed with tears pouring continuously down her face and soaking her shirt.
She even told her about the event that created the darkness inside her that would be fed by years of rejection, abandonment, loneliness, anger and fear.
The event responsible for the ptsd which was, in turn, responsible for her life long struggle with OCD and a moderate lack of sympathy. The four days she spent with her mother's boyfriend when she was 12. She could not recall the whole story as she had been quite thoroughly drugged, but she told what she could remember. She remembered one part well. Waking up in a camper in a field. Being shaken awake as a matter of fact. A voice, urging her in a loud whisper to wake up.
"You've got to wake up now! Hurry, wake up! You've got to wake up!"
She told the lady how she had climbed on top of the camper and seen only more tall grass, maybe some trees, but no roads or houses. How the man came out of those woods, looking surprised to see her, dropped what must have been a shovel, and said it was time to take her home.
She told this stranger, this woman who probably memorized too much useless information during her expensive education to make room for the knowledge that would have actually been helpful to her in this moment, about all the most secret, strange, shameful moments of her life. She rattled off the facts and events of her darkest day as if she were reading out the set up instructions for a board game. She did not, however, mention a single word about him. No, that was hers. She may no longer believe he was ever anything more than a dream, but that dream she would keep for herself. Her own, secret love, private pain, lonely loss.