November 6, 2025

The Younger Years

I don’t know much about my very young years. My mom didn’t talk about the past much. But, even when she did, it was hard to believe much of what she had to say, given her personality issues. I don’t know how many of the memories I have of my very young years are actual occurrences or just stories I’ve heard her tell numerous times so that it just became ingrained in my mind.

I have vague memories of things. Such as being at the top of a stairwell chasing baby mice around, trying to catch them before they went down the stairs. Mom tells me this happened one night when the mice she raised escaped their cages. She raised them to sell to the pet store for snake food.

I also have memories of living in a house that had a floor plan that was two stories. It had a staircase right inside the front door. The bottom floor was the living room, kitchen, bathroom and mom’s bedroom. There was a hallway that connected all these rooms, but it went in a circle all the way around the house and connected at the staircase. Upstairs were two bedrooms.

The neighbor had a german shepherd that liked to come over to our house and visit us kids. We’d open our front door and play “tag” with this dog. The staircase was “home” or the safe spot where you could stop and rest without getting tagged out; we’d chase each other around the house in the hallway and jump into the staircase for safety. That dog would run around the hallway and jump into the staircase with us, as though he understood exactly what was going on. This is another example of a set of memories that I don’t know if I remember happening or if my mom has told the stories frequently enough that I just think they’re my memories.

It’s very frustrating to not know what is and is not your own memories.