It was the best of times....not

I was born in 1960, the first child in my family.  Marcie followed a year later, and two more sisters arrived in quick succession.  Four girls in four years.  My only brother (you have to pity the poor guy...lol) came along after that, rounding out our Catholic clan.   My mother had five kids by the time she was 26.   I can't even imagine what that was like for her.   No wonder she rebelled and started taking birth control.   I didn't even have my first until I was 28 and waited a few years before having my second.   I may have kept my ears closed to my mother's advice at times but certainly had my eyes open to her example.

Life for us kids was....difficult.  That's putting it nicely.    The one thing about my childhood that has stayed with me even until now is this....the FEAR.  I was afraid...always afraid.   Afraid of my parents....my mother's anger and my father's sexual abuse.   Afraid for my younger siblings...how to protect them?  Afraid of bringing home a bad grade, afraid of disappointing my mother,  afraid of being noticed (not seen and not heard was best),  afraid of the nuns at my school (got slapped across the face on my very first day there for crying, and I won't even talk about the piano-teaching nun from hell.  Until a few years ago the smell of coffee brewing--prevalent in the convent-- caused a visceral reaction in me: gut-wrenching anxiety), afraid of not doing my chores correctly...afraid, afraid, afraid.   The kind of fear that makes you hide behind your bedroom door for hours on end or stay outdoors all day long because of what...or who...waits inside.   That was my world...and Marcie's...and the rest of my siblings.   It was not a wonderful life......