Just A Small Town Girl

I was born in the south in 1990, in Fort Smith, Arkansas. My family moved to Pennsylvania when I was just a year old. My mother was predominantly a (fabulous) single mother, and she raised myself and my three brothers the best way she knew how. We minded our manners, came home before the street lights came on (most of the time), and we said “please” and “thank you”, lest the wrath of the dreaded wooden spoon rear its ugly head.

I grew up catching lightning bugs in glass jars and playing tag in the woods; I was one of the boys with my scraped knees and tough bare feet. We went fishing with our hands in the “crick”and took crawdads home for dinner. We ate fresh blueberries right off the vine until we thought our bellies would burst, and plucked apples from the tree in our neighbor’s yard so our mother could make her famous apple crisp.  We knew what it meant when our momma  counted to three, and we knew how to make her laugh before she got to two-and-a-half. She was, and always has been, an advocate for tough love, and we have been made all the better for it.

I grew up where folks said “pop” instead of “soda” and “yinz” instead of “ya’ll”; where it wasn’t uncommon to get caught behind a horse and carriage on your way to church. I grew up in cowgirl boots and sun dresses, my golden hair in pigtails and dirt under my fingernails. I grew up in the shadow of a woman who was the light of my life; someone I aspired to be in every possible facet.

Holidays were spent with my family around one table, as though it were a symbol of solidarity betwixt the five of us, and my mother sat at the head. We had a giant Christmas tree we’d start to decorate around Thanksgiving, complete with garland and ornaments we’d had since birth. We were allowed to open one present on Christmas Eve, as was our tradition, but nothing more until early the next morning. Neither myself nor my brothers were ever able to sleep very much. My brothers and I were as thick as thieves, and our mother was the chieftain.

I am now 24 years old. I work nearly 70 hours per week (two jobs) and have next to no social life other than the time I spend with my cats. I live on my own in south Los Angeles County. There is no Christmas tree in my studio apartment, and the dining table upon which we used to eat dinner has long been sold. I eat dinner in bed and flip through television channels I am mostly uninterested in until I feel it is late enough to go to sleep. And this year my family will sit to eat Christmas dinner around a plethora of different tables, just as we have done for the past ten years.

Long gone are the days of lightning bugs and crawdads; of Christmas-tree decorating and begging to open presents. When I was younger all I wanted to do was grow up. I wanted a mustang like my older brother, and I wanted to be a police officer and take down “bad guys”. Now that I am 24 years old and am sitting behind a desk (although I DO have that mustang), all I want to do is go back to Pennsylvania and chase the neighborhood boys in my bare feet. Long gone are the days of blueberries and apple crisp, but I still have that wooden spoon.