Early Memory
May 19th, 2009
I don’t remember how I was, but it was an age where I remember grown ups being faces hovering far above the legs at my eye level. It was the boredom of mothers shopping, my mother and her best friend together, shopping taking twice as long as it normally would because it’s also now a social occasion and I’m not getting anything and my mother is paying attention to her friend and not to me and they are engaged enough in conversation not to pay attention to me listening. And my mother’s friend in the middle of some longer pointless story is describing a child who cried so hard she threw up and this, this is Information to me. Throwing up is the mark of real sickness, it’s the least pleasant sensation I know, but also, it’s the claim on real sympathy. People have to be nice to you and nobody can be mad at you when you are sick. And thus the next time I am in trouble it seems obvious to me that the trick is to keep crying until I can throw up and then they will have to be sorry for me.
Only it never worked. I got dry and empty too soon and it was no good trying to force the tears and the observation of myself crying was not conducive to getting good and worked up.
May 28th, 2009 at 2:39 pm
It is funny but vomiting was certainly the least pleasant sensation I knew, but now actually enjoy it when I am sick as it brings a kind of post-vomit euphoria. In moments of desperate sickness, this PVE is the key to getting back to sleep quickly before the nausea sets in and ruins any chances of slumber.
oh and earliest memories- OMG I could write a book! I love to visit these as one inevitably cascades into another-
I remember feeling jealous at 2 when my new born sister was being breast fed and I was like- “that is MINE” I remember chickenpox (also at 2) and our cat stuck in a tree just minutes before a tornado siren went off, but I don’t remember vomit.