Unhappy -- kinda -- childhood

I see I have had autobiographical notes here and there in this blog, but not about my childhood.  Interesting.  I use to count the days of my life from age twenty, thinking that if I were now fifty, and I lived beyond ninety,, then I had lived less than half my life.  The years of childhood didn't even count.

And I guess they don't.  I have few childhood memories, and the ones I do are morose or bitter or empty or meaningless or plodding, certainly not happy.  Of course this is not relevant, we can overcome such dull upbringing, but I think I need to write a bit more.

My mom was a little over-protective, and told us over and over to the point that she drove us nuts, how much she loved it, but then she would go into a temper and hysterics over trivialities and I at least thought it was all words.  I now know she had serious medical problems involving a woman's organs and that this involves emotions, and while she seemed horrid she was also loving.  At any rate while I endured a lot of verbal abuse, there was never anything physical and I had not fear.

My father loved my mom and I always had the suspicion he had us to please her, because she wanted babies, but we didn't stay babies.

Being gay I was always a bit effeminate, but my dad, wise in this by intuition I'm sure, gently steered me away from that and I generally acted normal.  Yes, I was "sis" during my junior high schools, but I also excelled in school and this was envied, so I managed and wrote down the slurs as envy.  I was also physically big, and for an effeminate kid that is a huge offset.

What I always had was my intellectual "smarts"-- the kind that gets good grades -- straight A grades.  I never got elected to anything but was still valedictorian and got all kinds of scholarships and all that junk, and a big deal was made it at graduation and my class gave me a standing ovation.  Afterward I remember so clear I was milling about getting congrats and things and my dad walks up and says, time to go, you had enough of this.  I guess my ego was a bit out of line an it was showing so my dad did what he had to do, but did he have to do it that way?

Anyway that summer I took the train for Harvard and only went back a few times over the years.  It is interesting that for various reasons I never went to either of my parents' funerals.