If I ever lay down on a shrink's pleather couch... (don't ask me why it's pleather, but I'm pretty sure it would be)...they would probably say what I always hear them say in the movies. "Tell me about your childhood."
Well, we could probably skip all that and get right down to business:
It's all my mother's fault.
Now I know that I'm raising cats, while she raised daughters. And I also know parenting doesn't come with a manual. But I'm pretty sure if it did, it would include these key points.....
*Leashing your dog is one thing. Leashing you daughter is kind of another. Yeah, she put a leash on me. She said it was some child-harness-thing that was designed for my own good. Call it whatever you like, but it was a leash. And she said that I loved it! I sure bet I did! Funny how I don't remember that part of the story. It's probably one of those terrible, repressed memories that I would recall under hypnosis on that pleather couch. But my mother, to this day, says that she had to use it because I would wander up and talk to everyone and she was afraid that they would snatch me up. The leash probably really did deter that. If I witnessed something like that, I'd steer clear of the whole family!
Now this is all making sense, huh? It's a wonder I'm as normal as a I am! Let's continue.
*Wait in the parking lot. You may see a trend here, but I cried a lot when I was little. I'm a Cancer (by the luck of the zodiac), so it's really out of my hands. I'm emotional, ya know? So when it came time for pre-school, I cried. A LOT. I didn't want my mom to leave me there. The neighbor boy, Nathan, stuffed me in one of the Playschool refrigerators on the first day. Then he leaned against the door, trapping me inside. Oh, the horror! It was just not a safe place for my delicate little self! So my mom promised to wait in the parking lot while I was inside. She said that if I felt lonely, I could just think of her outside the classroom doors, just a few yards away. That actually worked and I made it out of pre-school alive and without much drama the rest of my academic career.
That is, until my sophomore year of high school. I vividly remember sitting around the dinner table after a volleyball game and my mother saying to me, "Well, you really didn't think I was sitting in that parking lot day after day, did you?"
WHATTTTTT???????
Of course I did! What other things was this woman hiding?!?!?
What should have been hidden? The scissors.
But even with all these parental rule violations, she did a few things right. She's the first person I call when I've had a bad day. And somehow she just knows immediately. I don't even have so start uncontrollably sobbing (which sometimes happens, but not like it did when I was 5 and wearing a leash with chopped up bangs). She knows just what to say. And sometimes, she doesn't even have to say anything at all. She just has to be there. And she is. Always.
So if some old guy with a pleather couch ever asked me how I think my life turned out....
I'd have to say just right. And it's all my mother's fault.