Innocence Lost Part One

I started writing about my life for cathartic reasons and now I am going to start posting some of it here. It makes me vulnerable but I am not ashamed.

INNOCENCE LOST
BY,
Leticia Huber


I’m thirty and I am terrified. Terrified that the next thirty years will go by as fast as the first thirty years and all I will be left with is a bunch of what ifs and regrets. When you’re younger it seems as if time is creeping by at a snails pace and then speeds up at such a gradual pace that you don’t notice it until it is stuck on fast forward. Ask anyone over the age of thirty, they’ll tell you the same. I heard of the phenomenon plenty of times when I was growing up but I never took any notice until I experienced it myself. I am sure that you have heard the saying that hindsight is 20/20. It is. I have thirty years of regrets and it if I could do it all again, I would like to think that I would make different choices but unless I had already experienced the repercussions of my choices, they would be the same choices with same results all over again. Sometimes I wonder if I have time to fix the mess I have made. I hope so. Other times I wonder if my life had not been like a V.C. Andrews novel, minus the money, or similar to a Jerry Springer talk show, if I would have made better decisions. Would I still be thirty years old with six children, two stepchildren, in a two-bedroom house? Would I still have to haul water out my back door to do laundry? Then I chastise myself for wasting time feeling sorry for my children and myself. While I am indulging myself in pity, there are orphans without roofs over their heads and people that are literally dying of starvation. There are people whose lives are unimaginably worse than my life is and my life may be unimaginably worse than someone else’s life. Let’s face it, there is always someone else that has it worse than you do, and as terrible as it seems this thought helps me get through it. When I was younger, I always felt like I was going to do something wonderful in my life, as if I was going to be part of something amazing in spite of my origins. Is this just a fleeting thought of youth or does everyone feel this way at some point in their lives till they realize it isn’t going to happen. I do have hope that my life will get easier, somehow, some way. Without hope, I couldn’t get through the day. My children are my hope for a brighter future and better days. I wish I could give them more but I hope that they learn a lot from the little they have. As I analyze how I have come to this point in my life and how every decision has been a chain reaction car wreck I look back in order to move forward.

What is the first memory I can recall? It isn’t a full memory, more like many fragments. I remember being in a car with my mothers arms around me while she was singing, “Rock a bye baby.” I actually remember feeling safe and secure one of the few times in my life and especially my childhood that I would ever feel this way. I remember riding a bus with my mother but I don’t remember where we were going. I remember my mother reading to me. I remember traveling with my mother and her “friend” in a big rig, sleeping in the front two seats. I remember waking up in the cab at a truck stop and panicking because I was alone. It seemed like a mile from the door of the cab to the ground as I dangled from passenger door. I ran through the big rigs parked outside the truck stop making my way to the neon lights in the diner. My heart was racing and my eyes were scanning the people looking for my mother fearful that I was alone. I was only three 1/2 and quickly learning that the world was a crazy and frightening place.

The next memory I have is much darker. I remember that my mother was away again. She often was with one man or another. This time I was at my mother's aunt’s house and her aunt was leaving her sixteen-year-old son to keep an eye on me. His name was Jared. He seemed tall to me but at that age everyone seemed like a giant. He had dark brown eyes and long black hair that ended halfway down his back. He had invited a friend over to play pool. There was a hammock tied up in the basement where the pool table was and I laid in the hammock watching Jared and his friend playing pool. I remember falling asleep as “Another one Bites the Dust”, by Queen was playing on the radio. To this day, that song makes me cringe. I will never be completely sure if I truly fell asleep that day or if some part of my mind is protecting me by forgetting, but the next thing I remember is waking up in my mother’s aunt’s room. There were rays of sunlight coming through the French doors into the room. I looked down to find my cousins penis tucked into my shorts while he was fast asleep. I remember being so confused and frightened and sneaking out of the room to run to the bathroom. There are times I wish that I could remember what happened in between the basement and “waking up” but I can imagine it is so much better that I don’t. It is amazing how your mind practices self-preservation.

More to come later....