When I was 12

I was just looking at the scar on my wrist and realizing that a lot happened to me when I was 12. I don't know if this post will be of any interest to anyone else, but I thought I should chronicle my own memories for myself.

Number one thing that happened to me when I was 12 was probably the saddest--my birthday was forgotten because of the death of my step-grandfather. He was my grandma's second husband (the one who recently turned 101) and he was the person I thought of as my grandfather, because I never met my "real" grandfather. I think we had the funeral for him in the couple of days after my birthday, and of course things were very busy and stressful getting ready. I can remember sitting in front of the television on the morning of my birthday.....I have to explain that in central California, we didn't have snow days, because it never snowed, but we had fog that every year killed a good many people from traffic accidents. So, in an attempt to cut down on accidents, they'd delay school to try and wait until the fog started to lift. I was sitting watching PBS, because that's where we found out what schools had foggy day schedules. I was reading, out loud, "Today is January 7, 1981....the following schools" blah blah blah. I was reading it out loud over and over, thinking someone would hear the date and say, oh, it's your birthday! But it didn't happen. After school my mom apologized and gave me my presents and all that.

The scar on my wrist came from the removal of a cyst when I was 12. When I was four, I'm told (I don't remember it) I was in the car with the same grandmother, when she had to slam on the brakes. My arm hit the dashboard and the cyst was the result from that. Over the years my mom always asked doctors if it was anything they needed to take care of. Oh, no, it's nothing, they'd say. The cyst was about the size of a dime, and it was blue. It usually didn't bother me much, but when I was 12 it would sometimes bulge out and then it was extremely sensitive and would hurt badly whenever it got bumped a bit. I remember I couldn't help but bump it when I was playing my violin. My mom decided it was time to take it to a specialist, so off to Fresno we went (closest city to us) and the doctor immediately took a biopsy. He called a few days later and told my mom, with marked relief, that it wasn't cancerous. We hadn't known to be worried until then, because all the doctors before had said it was nothing, and this doctor said he was just taking a biopsy just to see what it was. Anyway, I went back a few days later, and the doctor gave me a local anesthetic and cut it open and took it out. I still have a diagonal line scar, plus little dots on the sides of the line where the stitches were sewn. I can count that there were 6 stitches.

I believe it was when I was 12 that I first began to think of myself as fat. I don't know where it came from, because when I look at pictures of myself then, I think I wasn't fat at all. It wasn't until I was 30 years old, and read a book on body image that changed how I looked at my own body, that I began to undo the damage I'd done to myself (and done to me by societal expectations) from constantly berating myself over my weight.

When I was 12 I got the chicken pox. My mom had exposed me before, multiple times, but either I didn't get it or it was too mild of a case. Boy, did I have a doozy of a case then! I was miserable. I had to stay with my grandmother (boy, I'm realizing how big my grandmother figured in my life at 12 years old) because my mom had home day care, and not everyone wanted their kids exposed. One big reason why I exposed my kids--even traveling over 4 hours to find someone with chicken pox--when they were 5 and 8. I'm glad to have that one behind us. I'd thought this week that they may have caught the mumps that have been going around recently, but I think I'm wrong. We don't vaccinate (obviously). Maybe I'll explain that one another time.

When I was 12, I liked school again. I loved school in kindergarten, under a very creative teacher. But 1st grade was when my family moved to Texas for a year. I'm sure not all schoolteachers in Texas are bad....but it's hard for me to objectively think about this one. The school that I attended still used corporal punishment. I was used to spanking at home....but not like this. Kids got spanked for very small things. I lived in constant fear of being spanked, even though I was a "good girl." I repeated everything I'd already done in kindergarten, academics-wise. The school was extremely petty. I also made some weird friends....I had two friends who lived down the block from me who were sisters. They were usually okay, but sometimes I'd come out to play with them and they claim they weren't Cheri and Jeri but their twin sisters whom I'd never seen before because they lived elsewhere or something. They wouldn't ever give up their game and I'd leave disappointed to not be able to play.

I didn't have a good experience in Texas! I suppose it's one of those weird things, but I don't ever have any desire to live in Texas or spend much time there again. Even if.

Oh, yeah, back to being 12 and in sixth grade. I didn't like school from 1st grade on, until I got into 6th grade and absolutely *loved* my teacher. Mr. Davis. I wonder what he's doing now....or if he's even still around. He really helped me heal from bad school experiences.

I acted in a play in sixth grade. It was A Christmas Carol, which in my elementary school was done by the sixth graders every year. I got the part of the daughter....gee, I suppose I could go look in our copy and tell you the name, but it was the daughter of Bob Cratchit who comes home from work, and hides when Bob came home to surprise him. The try-out was to run into the arms of the boy who was playing Bob Cratchit. They said I did it the most convincingly of anyone (for a sixth grade girl, mind you!) but I didn't tell anyone (perhaps I've never told anyone until now) that the reason why I did it so convincingly was that I had a crush on that boy. :-)

Ah, memories. I suppose that last one was from when I was 11, not 12, since it was for Christmas in sixth grade and I didn't turn 12 until January.

Hibi is 12 now. I wonder what memories she'll have of being 12 when she's 37?