But the story of my life always starts:

"She was born the princess of the universe".  The infant in me remembers a time when I was the miracle child of a large and loving family. 

 

She remembers a time when everyone looked at me and said "Isn't she beautiful!".  She remembers being the center of attention.  This is something that I share with many people in the world. 

 

She may also remember Mom's wedding presents- the silver, the china, the crystal, her Alcenon lace wedding dress, the beautiful gowns that they bought for her as a baby- and her memories of that are connected to the word "princess". 

 

Think there is a part of me that always wants that attention and always wants those beautiful clothes and things- that always wants to be the princess that I was in the very beginning of my time on earth.  That was very natural and normal.

 

In the first six months of my life, my Dad left the house at 5:00 every morning to go down to his family's tobacco fields where he worked.  My Mom woke me up, dressed me like a princess, and we drove Dad down to the fields so she could have the car for the day if she needed it. 

 

Mom was into her role as a mother.  She had purchased a 26 volume set of books on infant and child care- and she raised me by the book.  Sometimes the books absolutely frustrated her.  They told her that bonding time with the infant was very important- that when the baby was awake, that some of the happiest times would be when mother placed the child on a blanket on the bed and just interacted with one another. 

 

So every afternoon, she got out the blanket, put it on the bed, placed me on the blanket and waited for interaction.  To this day she remembers: "Every day I put you on the blanket and you didn't DO anything!"  From that she understood that I just was not a normal child.

 

But as I'm writing this, I realize that my bond with my Mom has always been very close and always will be- and that her bond with me has always been much closer to her bond with the other children.  Maybe the book was right.  Maybe Mom did the right thing back then.  Maybe expecting an infant younger than 6 months to DO something was a fairly high expectation. 

 

Maybe my Mom's cognititions about the event never mattered.  The goal of the activity was bonding- and that is just what happened.  And when I was a Mom- the best time of my life was just putting a blanket on the bed, placing my son on it, and just looking at him and how beautiful he was- and to this day- I have no idea if he did anything or not- he was just so wonderful.  As Martha would say- it's a good thing.

 

In the evenings, Mom would get me all dressed up again, go back down to the fields, and bring Dad home.  On the drive down, I would fall asleep in my car bassinet and stay asleep for the night.

 

October came, work in the fields was done for the year, and there was no need to drive- whatever bookeeping or planning that needed to be done the next year could be accomplished by walking across the street to his parent's home. 

 

Baby Mary was NOT happy.  Baby Mary wanted her ride in the car.  Baby Mary would not go to sleep unless she had her ride in the car- and baby Mary cried and cried loudly because she could not go to sleep. 

 

Mom checked her books.  They told her that babies have a routine and any upset in that routine caused them to become unhappy. 

 

She came to the conclusion that she needed to take me and my bassinet out to the car every night, then start the car engine and let it run for a half hour.  It worked.  I went to sleep. 

 

It was also ridiculous and my Dad was not about to put up with that nonsense.  So he took one of my mother's book, went out to the car, and applied it to my rear end.  I cried extra loud for a few minutes, then went to sleep.

 

That was how the princess of the universe got her first taste of book-learning.

 

Now everyone looking at this would tell you that both parents were wrong.  The solution might have been for both parents to go out for a ride in the country together and thus have some family bonding- or to just let the baby cry for a few days until she learned that her ride in the country days were over. 

 

As I was writing this, I was going to write that this was probably my first trauma and that it did not have any affect on my life.  Then I realized that I was wrong- that this application of the book was deeply damaging. 

 

When baby Mary grew up, she did not like driving, she did not like being alone in the car, she even spent 20 years without a car happily walking and taking the bus to avoid being alone in the car. 

 

She spent 5 years walking her child to and from day care every day up one of the busiest streets in town.  She started out in the stroller, then in a red wagon, then finally he insisted on walking on his own- even before he was able to handle the fatigue. 

 

She lived with a lot of trauma for a lot of years, abusing herself walking in a town where it was impossible to get by without driving.  Her legs were giving out.  It was getting harder and harder to walk. 

 

She saw older women who had taken the bus every day carrying heavy loads- whose legs were swollen 2-3 times their normal size- who struggled to even get on the bus. 

 

She didn't know why she was afraid of driving- so she came up with the wrong answer- she told people that she was afraid of driving because she had been hit by a car 4 times- and that might have been part of the truth also- but maybe just a precipitating factor. 

 

When she was 49 years old and more afraid of being unable to walk than being afraid of driving, she finally decided that she needed to go out and buy a brand new car that she was proud to drive and that was not a hazard to her health- so there would be no need to fear. 

 

She learned to enjoy driving and to overcome that fear. 

 

And what is one of her absolute favorite activities in this new world?  Taking her grown son out in the car in the late afternoon for a ride in the country. 

 

See?  Somewhere inside of her was a part that remembered the good things about riding in the car- that remembered the things that Baby Mary cherished- that she loved- that even as a baby that she fought to maintain. 

 

And when the day was done, and she learned to stop being afraid, she got the good times back.

 

So if you have fears, maybe you should confront them also- do just the opposite of what those fears tell you to do- and you just might reclaim something wonderful that you lost as a tiny child. 

 

It's a way to start to find yourself- another piece in rebuilding the Discipline of Self-Esteem.