Jetée

wet trousers.

being shy, yet extremely talkative.

being adopted. (this could have been good, and I'm sure it was for the betterment of my life in the long run, but I can't help but think I'd be happier as a poor ragamuffin in the Andes rather than a depressed urbanite who can never commit or attribute empathy onto family and friends.)

having a "jelly belly".

having the "profusely-sweaty" gland, tied to only having my hair cut every 6 months or so, meant I always looked frizzed.

looking back, being a truant. I missed alot of good days because I was always absent.

having the "smarts", yet never living up to my potential.

the past two probably instilled such a strong sense of procrastination and apathy within me that I now fight daily just to survive.

having asthma. I don't know if you ever recover from having it, but at the time, and having to use the clean air respirator/ventillator machine for 20 min. each day, along with the "puffer" was not at all appetizing to a small active boy.

moving from home to home. constantly.

lack of neighborhood friends as a consequence.

mother's death at age 10.

father's alcoholism from age 7 onward.

my intestinal problems of which caused many complications, embarassments, hospitalizations.

other numerous deaths that took its toll on my psyche early on.

my too-naive outlook on pets. I sorely mistreated a fair share of them, and it haunts me whenever I think about it. One instance, is when a puppy was finicky when I picked him up, and I dropped/slammed him back on the ground in a fit. Another, I took a fish out of its aquarium, and I forgot to put him back in, effectively icing him. One last one, in which I let my beloved widower cockatiel live in the same squalor I was, devoid of any light, and he couldn't bear it any longer.
I'm truly sorry, guys.

belts, and the whippings that they presented.

always having hands thrust upon your eyes when the film slut's top was about to come off. I probably wouldn't need to have so much visual splendor daily if I was at least able to glimpse a boobie or two before the age of 12.

having the "sweet blood" while living in Florida, which meant that if I were ever to venture outdoors, at the onset of my return home, I looked like a strawberry's multitudinal seeds with the extreme number of bug bites I was able to accumulate within the span of a few hours.

not taught to be a reader.

never stolen a kiss.

falling in love with my classmates on a too-often basis, and then getting heartbroken because I never had the courage to speak up, and then ten years later you can't help rewinding the tape.

broken and forgotten friendships.

generic cough syrups.

cockroaches and weevils in your cereal.

humidity. everywhere. even during December.

pictures of times I'd much rather have left unremembered.

crying for no particular reason, other to garner attention to something that probably could have resolved itself quicker had I not been such a wussy.

nearly always picked last on a kickball, football, soccer team.

having to walk to and from school for the better part of a decade, and it was never nearer than 1 mile from home. average time to get home: 36 min. from grades 4 to 11.

running to a bus stop, only to see it drive up, stop, and then pull off again, and I'm still huffing more than two blocks away.

laundry days.

shower nights.

being so cold as to wonder why this is happening to me.
as a result, I don't go into a grocery store, Hospital, Church without a sweater on anymore.

discovering Playboy at the age of 12, and actual bangin' pornography not too much later.
The Playboy pcitorials were not too bad; in fact, they may have instilled in me a healthy respect and adoration for the female form, but the mustachioed copulating? It made me sick up until a generation later, which I still don't like all that much, but I can now see the appeal.

the look of a bowl of New England Clam Chowder. (it's not so bad anymore)

being Batman for Halloween for four years, with one year in-between where I dressed a flowery sheet with two eye holes.

on the subject of Halloween; perhaps the worst holiday for me as a kid. I either never got enough candy, had the worst costume, an embarassing day at school, or was in the hospital with all the sickly kids. there was a few last efforts when I was still able to go out, but I either overslept or forgot about what day it was. parades suck, and so does this degenerated excuse for a celebratory day of importance.

at the thought of it, I was almost abducted as a kid at least three times, if not more, yet somehow, I managed to arrive home safely.

crap. having to learn about rape because it had actually occurred to an eighth-grader in the Catholic school I was attending. It had made the papers, and the details in which the teacher did not hold back in re-describing the events to a class of second and third-graders, it was not depressing. It was downright debilitating.

pokemon. (I wasn't a kid when it came out, but it still sucked)

roller skates. (this is more my generation, but I still could never master the brakes, or walking, or anything in them).

not learning how to ride a bike.

I somehow unlearned how to swim at the age of 6, and I never got back into the swing of moving in water at all. All I could ever do at the beach/pool was either flail or sink.

haggling for bedtime back then, when nowadays, kids don't go to bed until at least 10 or 11 pm. What? and they don't go to school until 9 am. What?

uniforms. and only having 4 sets of them.

black clogs.

lice inspections.

eye evaluations.

what's it called? word per minute typing drills. those were awful.

Presidential Fitness Tests.

the word 'computer', and the connotations it held way back when.

the worst moments of my life that I have all but blacked out by now.
perhaps the only good mention and utilization of my poor memory rentention.

remembering that after my mother's death, I could have had the opportunity to live with my rich "Godparents". (whom were actually the attorneys of my mother's estate, and whom I lived with for a summer prior to the one in which I lost her). Instead, I was reloacted far away to live with a man I thought I had escaped, and had to continue to endure the abusiveness.

being short.

being uncoordinated.

being late.

being poor.

being aloof, to the point of being out of touch, distant, and alien.

the feeling right after you vomit. (this may still suck for some as adults, but as soon as I became one, I haven't vomited since.)

yearbooks. (I could never afford them)

hobbies, of which I had none.

my efforts, toys, memories, clothing, possessions, and recounts; all of which had to be abandoned as soon as I came into being and the awareness of an adult.

__________________
As human beings, our greatness lies not so much in being able to remake the world (that is the myth of the Atomic Age) as in being able to remake ourselves.

—Mohandas K. Gandhi