My First Memory
I was outside the house standing in the driveway, the yard stretched out beyond the beautiful green yard. It was a lovely sunny day.
I think I was about 11 years old, feeling discouraged or left out because my parents were going to some kind of a picnic, or a party with their friends. Me and my little brother had to stay home.
I wanted at least some show of compassion; secretly I wanted to go with them.
What I got was an old nursery rhyme. “Nobody loves me, everybody hates me, I think I’ll eat some worms.”
I didn’t think it was funny. It taught me how to reject emotion with sick humor.
Eating Worms
Those words stung a little bit. I didn’t know if it was a joke, because it was kind of funny eating worms and all, but it came off as making me feel pushed away.
Let’s face it, your mother is leaving to go to a party and telling you to eat worms. How would you feel?
It reinforced the feeling I already had about her being at arm’s length from me, and it changed how I would later ask for comfort. I basically just stopped asking.
Intention
Looking back, I don’t think my mother meant to be hurtful. I think humor was her way of handling difficult situations.
She always admitted being the class clown when she was in school, and she was always kind of funny and everyone seemed to love her. I think maybe that’s how her family did things; there was not a lot of hugging. Maybe coming from money does that to you.
When I see people hugging it’s odd behavior to me. I don’t get a chance to hug very often, maybe a distant relative you run into at a wedding or funeral.
Hugging can be like channeling. I learned it from mind-melding with the dog, but maybe even that’s another story.
Anyway, I’m 100% sure this is a rhyme my grandmother told her, or she learned it on a playground. My grandmother, “Mimi,” and a lot of mimi-isms, I should try to remember them.
Folk Humor
The poem is truly widely known. I figured it always was cuz it’s something children learned on the playground, but never talked about.
It feels less personal to me now because my mom diverted to a childhood nursery rhyme about being not loved, to her 11-year-old kid. I think that says a lot about how distant she kept me.
It’s funny that children like to sing about sickness and death. Maybe it was a way of coping at the time the event took place, but over the years it just becomes a silly childhood rhyme or song to dance around too.
Humor as Armor
Humor became armor to me and I withdrew into loneliness. It was not a funny nursery rhyme, it taught me that humor could get it attention. Like my mother before me, I leaned towards becoming the class clown. Although, I was still pretty shy and reserved, an observer.
I chose when to be funny. I learned early that timing is everything, but sadly, underneath it all, being funny hid what I was really feeling.
Maybe there was a girl that I was attracted to (even this was a new kind of feeling), but instead of saying, “Hey there pretty girl, would you like to go on a date?” I would make my own diversion and say something funny to make her laugh.
Other kids dated, broke up, met another. Life evolved, how do you say it? We were coming of age, except I was stuck inside a shell, popping my head out once in a while to be funny.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m thankful for my circle of friends. Boys and girls. For the most part we didn’t “date” each other. We played mini-golf and hung out at the diner.
The Loneliness Underneath
It’s hard to describe what loneliness feels like. It’s just kind of an empty feeling but it’s combined with aphantasia, so, my head is blank and my insides are blank; just call me a Space Oddity.
I don’t know if people are surprised that I would feel lonely, during my career I was seen as being a pretty confident person.
Home life wasn’t that great, I feel that my loneliness carried over to my relationship with my wife. She commented once about how she was afraid, after seeing how my dad never cried or barely showed emotion, when my mom died, that I would also show no emotion if she died.
I don’t know what’s true. I sometimes get this feeling that I’m going to cry uncontrollably and I’ll start, but I am able to stop it so I don’t know. That’s a landmine waiting to be stepped on.
Sarcasm
There’s nothing funny about the worm poem, and I wish I had never heard it. It’s a put down.
Furthermore, I wish I had never told it to my kids. If it was just a funny joke, like funny haha, then well, okay; but if I ever used it as a weapon to put my kids down, then I am truly sorry for that.
Using sarcasm as a weapon isn’t funny, and I know because I became an expert at it, and I still can be, because let’s face it, sarcasm can be funny.
Looking Back
I would say to my young self to drop the shield of humor. It’s okay to be funny because you have a good wit, and you’ve been a good listener your whole life. Don’t be afraid to reach out to others, and don’t be afraid of rejection. Just cuz you feel rejected by your mother, don’t let it stop you from searching for Love from others; which you sadly did.
Now that makes me want to start crying like I previously mentioned. Maybe this is good therapy but I’m taking a deep breath and I’m not going to cry.
I do not want to start going down the path of what future Doug might have looked like if he had self-confidence at a young age; that’s a whole other book (Songs Unfinished).
The Reunion
With my 50th high school reunion coming later this year, I find myself wondering what people remember. Do they remember the funny version of me? The quiet observer? The kid trying to look less lonely than he felt?
Maybe all reunions are partly about seeing other people again and partly about meeting the old version of yourself.
Moving On
The loneliness did not disappear. It found channels. It went into creative writing.
I can become sixteen-year-old Billy or Mia. I can become a fluffy white cat chasing aliens. I can climb onstage with a dinosaur band.
And sometimes I can leave all of it behind and take my dog for a walk.
Like I’m doing now.
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