I have been missing my sister like crazy since she moved. She's only been gone a couple weeks and it feel like months!! We are trying to plan some last minute things to do before we move at the end of next month. Places we want to see and revisit. I know we will be back, but, I know it won't be the same too. Which is really bitter sweet. Things I "plan" on doing... it's a running joke because I know half of them probably won't happen...
I want to drive into Elizabethton, feed the ducks, take pictures of the covered bridge, and take my kids to the park there. Then maybe eat at Dino's. The down town area is dead, the little ice cream shop across the street is gone. I believe last time I drove by it was a dentist office? Still these are my most cherished memories, and places of being little. I also wanted to drive by my Grandparents home, where I spent practically every weekend and summer of my childhood. But I'll have to see, that might be too much.
We were thinking about going to Dennis Cove and having a picnic. It's so beautiful here. Driving home from Tallahassee I really looked at the mountains for the first time and was in awe of how beautiful they are, right in my back yard. It is so beautiful! Lately every night we have deer come into the back yard and eat off our pear tree. Normally I just see two or three. Last year around April I saw 9! Also we have mint and honey suckle everywhere I will miss how good it smells, and the sounds of the train at night.
When I was 7 and my mom decided to pack up my sister and I and move us to Miami so she could marry husband number two. An architect she had met at a high school reunion.
The wedding was fun, I thought at the time. I got to wear a ridiculously poofy mint colored dress. And got to get my hair done at a beauty salon, where they gave me a french braid with little bits of baby's breath tucked in it. I snuck champagne at the reception and drank a big mouthful on a dare from a 13 yr. old cousin. I liked when the DJ announced my name in the wedding party and then everyone clapped and smiled at me.
I was always a really emotional child, a worrier, fretful, and painfully shy. Being so far away in a new place didn't help things.
I didn't like the rest of our "extended vacation". I hated the iron bars over all the windows of the houses, in our neighborhood. The sandy red dirt, the mountains of fire ant hills, that I was always stepping into. The lizards that darted around on our back porch, and a huge yellow and black spider that had made it's home directly in the middle of my bedroom window outside. it seemed to glow at night I could hardly close my eyes to sleep for starring at it through the glass.
We went through half a dozen babysitters in the 8 months we lived there. A Hispanic, lady who was Catholic, she would always have us pray and would do the sign of the cross before eating. There was a tiny Jamaican woman who could hardly speak to me. But was kind to me when my mom went out of town. She put my hair in tight braids or high ponytails before I would leave for school. There was a 19 year old hispanic girl from our neighborhood who watched us a couple times. We bonded over Rescue 911 being our favorite show. ( Which at 7 I was not allowed to watch but did anyway.) She would say in her thick accent " I always like to watch the shown, then in emergency I know what to do!" She always scared me to death by telling stories of break ins and robberies and near death experiences of all her friends. There was Jody, who was 30 and drove a beat up green Honda. She seemed nice enough until she started helping herself to my Mom's closet when it was nap time for the kids. My favorite was Jeanie, a nice grandma type lady. Who made me think of my own grandma back in Tennessee.
My stepfather drove me to school every morning in his jeep. My school was a big ugly, key lime green colored, stucco building. Something that color you would only see in Florida. My teacher was mean. Mrs. Wall. She had bug eyes, and balls of pit hair, and wore long nylon dresses. My only friends were Nikki, a redhead that lived a street over from us and Christina, who was from Cuba. Christina and I sat together alone at a long lunch table. We both ended up with warm, sour cartoons of chocolate milk. On our first day. We had contests to see who could hold their breath the longest. She would always pinch her nose closed when we started. I never did, I always won.
In school I remember a worksheet being slammed down onto my desk "A D!!" My teacher screamed referring to a test I had taken the day before. I don't remember what else was said. Just that she stood over me yelling, and that she was really tall. I remember on the front was a a picture of a window with a moon shining through and under you were supposed to choose an answer what time of day it was. I sucked back hot tears and my hands worked furiously to erase every wrong answer on the page. The eraser left ugly gray smudges on the paper. I continued to do this and didn't dare look up. Not even when our Spanish teacher came in to take over and do our 30 minute Spanish class. "Emily." She said in a sweet voice, you're not supposed to be working on homework now sweetheart." I immediately broke down and cried so hard my shoulders shook. Mrs.Wall came over and put her hands on my shoulders."She didn't know, yes, it's alright." She said in a sick motherly voice. In a few months I would be leaving.
Less than six months after the I do's, it was over.I remember being told to say goodbye to my Stepfather he was laying in bed, his face was red and his eyes were bloodshot from crying. He said "Remember if you ever need another Dad, I'm here." or something to that effect. Which I could have cared less about. I was thrilled to go home and didn't think anything of him. Those tears were for the loss of my Mom, who looking back I do believe he genuinely loved. Not for the loss of "2 daughters". He would force us to sit at the kitchen table until we ate out nightly dose of squash. He also was found of putting us in the corner as discipline. Once he left my sister standing there so long she peed her pants. In the beginning my mom asked us to call him Dad. which I didn't remember until years later. I missed my own daddy who looked skinny and tired, and sad when we would drive down to see us. He gladly offered Mom whatever she wanted. He was desperate to get us back home. Finally, after reality set in, Mom agreed. He bought our old house back for my mom and sister and I to live in and moved us all back.
We drove back into the mountains, of Tennessee late at night. When I opened my car door to get out the first thing the hit me was the cold, crisp air. I had never smelled anything so wonderful. It was quiet and dark, and the only thing you could hear was a train rushing past us in the distance. This was home. Never had I been so happy to be anywhere in my life.
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