It took me forever to figure out how to get back on this site. Now Google is telling me that they are shutting the whole thing down. Oh, well, I guess no one reads any of this stuff anyway. I have had no responses to my first post.   I think I started out as one big mess from the day I was born.
I was an "After Thought" my siblings are 8,10 and 13 years older than me. An accident, a surprise, an unplanned pregnancy.  My early years I seemed to be surrounded by more parents than any kid could ever need. I had a mom.  She was tired, depressed and unhappy. My dad was not really engaged but pretty fond of me and I am told spoiled me rotten. Then the siblings, my oldest brother was eager to punish me and teach me lessons with cruel and immature choices on his part. He was also a teenage alcoholic and probably manic/depressive, angry as hell at the drop of a hat and I was afraid of him. My second brother was better. He played with me, taught me to skateboard, let me knock golf balls around our backyard and seemed to be a bit more sensitive to my childish fears and frustrations.  Lastly, my sister, 8 years older than me, she hated my mear existence and was the one stuck with me the most. She made frightening threats on a regular basis. Of course,  I was drawn to her like a flame. I wanted to look like her, dress like her, touch her stuff. I swear I truly believed that her food tasted better than mine. I tried to figure it out. Maybe it was her salvia. If we both had exactly the same thing, a glass of Coca Cola for example. Hers tasted better than mine. She was gifted and could drown me in guilt like the most seasoned nun at a home for unwed mothers.
Example: My teenage brothers shared a car and predictively fought over it on schedule. On one of these occasions, it became more violent and dramatic than usual. They each had dates and wanted the car. The first boy got in the car and drove away, the other yelling for all of Seventh Street to hear, "I'll bet (insert a girls name here) would be interested in hearing about (a different girls name here) before she goes out with you tonight." Tires squealed several times and reappeared in front of our house. Pushing, shoving, cursing, until the other boy got behind the wheel of the car and drove off. The first boy shouted threats that brought the second back to the house. Fists and bloody lips and someone sped away in the little car again, spraying gravel and laying skid marks over the street. I quietly reacted with an expression I had heard a dozen times a day in our house. "Je-sus-Christ!" My sister heard me and grabbed me firmly by my arms and began a tirade about taking the Lord's name in vain and how I would burn in hell for all eternity and my parents could never get over the shame and dishonor I brought to our family. Soon after the fight between my brothers had moved into the house with much more shouting, threats, cursing and blows. Dad entered the situation. One boy landed in a big chair on the North side of the living room, the other hit the couch along the west wall. Keys were confiscated and shoved into Dad's pocket. I don't know what they did about their dates. But, the little blue car remained parked on the street in front of our house and I couldn't figure out how I would make amends or ever earn forgiveness from God and my parents for my unforgivable transgression.  All that teenage drama, violence, fist fighting, threats for the whole neighborhood to witness and somehow, I was the one conscripted to burn in hell.
I don't know how old I was when all this was happening. Another incident was with my oldest brother. The angry, drunk, one. He took me swimming. The two of us piled into our Dads pick-up truck and drove to the city pool that was located the next town over from ours. About 8 miles from home. I was quickly deposited into the small kiddie pool and my brother made his way to the large pool. He was surrounded by other teens, mostly girls, I played with other kids in the small pool. I found a ball and began playing with it, entertaining myself.  It was turning dark and lights came on, and I found myself alone in the kiddie pool. I just continued to play with the ball. I could push it under the water and it would pop up from the water and I would catch it. I was content doing this. At some point, two people came to the edge of the pool and asked me for the ball. I told them it was mine and continued playing. Then my brother, a lifeguard and the two people came to my pool and I was ordered to give them the ball. I couldn't win so I gave it up. Then my brother told me we were going home. He was angry, I had lied, I had embarrassed him, Mom was going to really let me have it when she heard about the ball. We made our way down the highway to our town when he pulled into the local soft-served ice cream stand. He would not let me have ice-cream because of what I had done. But, he went to the window and bought an enormous ice cream cone for himself and returned to the pick-up truck and ate it in front of me. Some of his friends came over to the truck and he told them all about how horrible I was. Remember, I had embarrassed him. Two pretty girls told him he was being mean and making too big a deal out of it. But no, he had to teach me a lesson.
Upon arriving home I expected Mom and Dad to rip me to shreds. They, frankly, didn't act very interested. Not much more was made of the whole thing. I learned a lesson, that I didn't like going anywhere with my brother. There were other experiences similar to this one, I must have been a nightmare of a child. Good thing, this belligerent, often drunk, cruel teenager with a juvenile record was there to guide me through my childhood. He eventually took on the responsibility of explaining the facts of life to me. He was always drunk at this point. It ended when I was 14 years old and he pinned me in the corner of moms kitchen and began admiring how my breast had developed and how he liked the soft curve of my hips and how good looking I had become. Luckily, a family friend followed him into the room looking for ice from the refrigerator. He looked puzzled and suddenly pulled a chair from the kitchen table and sat down in a way that said, I'm not leaving. I ran out of the kitchen to my mother in the next room. I'll always be grateful to that man, a teacher,  but never saw him again. I think he kind of dropped my brother as a friend, after that.