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When growing pains of a teenager are accompanied by death of a love family member, war,loss of freinds in the war, etc, a great tormoil grows within them and they don't know where to turn next.
Just Some Thoughts
During the turmoil years a young individual has a hard time getting to know them selves, let alone trying to understand their parents’ ways and emotions. It was especially awkward when the family unit was large and there were many siblings close in age going through the same hormonal crisis. Hatred with self as well as everyone around them causes the individual to spin a cocoon around them for self preservation. It is as if they are saying to the world…"You can’t hurt me. I will hurt you first."
Out side stimuli such as the war and loss of friends could be traumatic as well as devastating for young ones to cope with. Suicide was thought by many, while there were those of us that stayed in our rooms, wrote our thoughts down while listening to the new wave of music The Beatles, Beegees, or the Rolling Stones as well as Diana Ross and The Supremes. Books were read such as those written by Edgar Allen Poe, Robert Frost, or books such as Jane Eyre, Withering Heights, Gone With The Wind, or Thomas Hardy, left a young girl back in the dark ages making her feel that at age 16 she would be an old maid soon. I sometimes felt that reading those older books captured me so much I was left in a time warp. Having not dated yet, I surely felt that no one wanted me and I would end up an old spinster despite my girlish appearance. That was more than likely why I didn’t have any boy friends, I looked 11 or 12 at age 16.Well back to my room to write, read, and dream.
I couldn’t stand the bickering and fighting that went on during a regular basis. My brothers fought about who would help with the daily chore of doing the dishes…I put a stop to that. I had them each pay me their allowance of one dollar a week to do their share of work just so I wouldn’t have to hear them argue. They went to their room to have their quiet time as well as get away from me.
A very close family member passed on earlier this year…my grandfather. He was my best buddy. I could go to him for anything…to talk, to help cut the grass, to just talk about how his life was before he came over from Czechoslovakia in 1921. It was always an adventure to be with him. I had always been very close to him, so when he passed away so quickly I was in shock for a very long time. So long, that I don’t think anyone really realized that it was the main reason I was sad and felt all alone. Here I was in a house full of six other people that was never empty of friends or other family members and I was still lonely and feeling the old spinster life style creep up on me. What kids think about! I wasn’t soo strange as some would think. There were others that thought the same way. At least I wasn’t one of those hippie flower children on drugs or contemplating suicide like a few friends that I had. Back to my room…I needed to think more about what this life was all about now!
~1969~
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