Me: still waiting for them to happen. I didn’t “get” to have them, Those Glory Days.
I had really good moments.
Anyone can see > Winning Debates was different from high school sports games. No Buckets of water get dumped on debaters, no carried around on shoulders of their team mates. No fans or cheerleaders, much less marching bands and stadiums full of people.
I can see how that treatment would get to their heads.
Can say the same for school newspapers, yearbook clubs, book clubs, math clubs, chess clubs, art competitions. Un-sung glories.
Even in high school, I didn’t believe my “greatest accomplishment” would happen during that phase of life (minor dependent bound to toxic family.) I’m not sure I’ve seen my glory days yet.
BTW
When my dear grandmother made it into the Guinness Book of World Records she was in her 90s.
Life Time Achievements take a while.
Potential for Glory > First concert Frenchhorn 7th grade,(family state post obliteration),
Dad living with “former student.”
Mom living with the boyfriend she “stole from her cousin.”
My brother made my sisters attend my school concert so that “family would be there for me.”
Still had to ride home in the back of the pick-up-truck, low dog,
The important people claimed the cab. (toxic sisters)
An important day for them, I guess.
My brother saw a lone saxophone player >> already resigned to no one there for him or to pick him up (2 incomes commonplace), settling in for a long wait, opening his homework and leftover lunch. My brother offered and gave him a ride home. So I wasn’t alone back there for part of the drive..
Then it started to rain.
First concert, riding home in the rain.
Most of what could have been a glory day for me, got unattended by family after that.
I had a good brother. It was really unfair he had to be a parent so much and not JUST “a boy his age.” Hard place to be, trying to launch your adult life while tethered to the mess of your parents’ irresponsibilities.
Parentification. Being the bigger child had to take on a lot for our mother, especially when I was a baby.
He once told me about the urgency to get home after school, because he knew the baby would need a change and be hungry. Can you imagine?
He was 6 years old, a first grader and was the main care-provider for a new infant. He would have been 1 year old when eldest tox-sis was born, 3 years old with enforcer tox-sis and assigned helping tasks with his sister’s care
>>> Not the main care provider, as he was with me.
His room was the safest place for me. I spent a lot of time there.
He taught me everything. Brush my teeth, tie my shoes, ride a bike, shoot a BB gun, reading, and most of the math I learned. Giving me his early school work to practice from, multiplication tables, graphs to fill out -up to 5X5, up to 12 etc.
I had access to his encyclopedia collection (except for M which was still missing last time I saw those books.) He was going to be the scientist in the family. He became an Engineer.
I wasn’t allowed near him while he worked on his submarine models. >>notoriously hungry/aka/eating odd things… that AND He was using superglue. Bad enough knowing I walked around with a plastic arsenal of missiles inside me… imagine the kind of damage I could do with superglue !!)
He had a fleet of them [submarines] hanging from his ceiling from fishing lines and thumb tacks. Big engineer dreams for that kid. Fueled my mother’s father. Former Navy.
My brother taught me every game I learned. Go-Fish to Poker with Cribbage somewhere in the middle. I was the one showing up to play with him.
My brother was a Sci-fi enthusiast until he found that ad in Omni, for Dungeons and Dragons in the late 70’s. Being that Big Brother had to teach his sisters… it didn’t take with the older two.
At their ages it was Teen Vogue for the pretty one and Enforcer didn’t read like that yet (no one knew she needed glasses.)
My tox sisters just didn’t “get” it.
I DID. I understood it.
I remember the “family” games, LIFE, Monopoly, Trivia Pursuit,
but D&D was different.
Character builds, maps, terrain, miniatures, armor, weapons!… Slaying Monsters!
THAT is where I had some glory days!!
My brother purchased Dragon Magazine, had the first 100 editions, and the 5 compilation books!
[Passed to me when my brother decided to boycott following the indoctrination >socialist purity standard of only INDIE (because capitalism -ew!) >>> Hence G.U.R.P.s.
It’s Now my son’s collection!!
>>>What a way to launch a Game Master!
“Really? You want to run a dungeon… ?” busting out the dented old rusted file box.
The Lore- most individually plastic bagged, some of them bookmarked and annotated by the guy who built my first dungeons and taught me to slay the monsters. (Obstacles life throws at me.)
> Pause <
This is a BIG Delusion the women of my tox-family have. Mother, and sisters <<< Gonna have to pop that bubble of delusion/echo chamber.
They were NOT my role-models, nor care providers.
I never strived to be like them.
I pledged to never be like them,
especially after watching them subvert MY basic “normal” life for stupid selfish reasons.
I wanted to be more like my brother.
I was safest with my brother.
The art: “Once upon a time… as a child growing up on the carnival,”
There was a small circus our carnival partnered to share event space with… Amusements to draw and entertain crowds waiting for the next show. This show had a gorilla (man in costume) that breaks loose and charges the audience… Random volunteer in the audience (in flower shirt hence plant. Light weight, wont put your back out of whack plant.) Forgot to warn the plant.
Even worse when the Gorilla ripped his own face off and used my name trying to calm me.
I was so put off by gorillas, well primates in general, it probably bordered on phobia. I couldn’t sit through a Curious George cartoon.
For a few years after Carnival life… I would have “day-mares” or “hallucinations” about a gorilla trying to grab me up and carry me out … probably to rip my face off or make me watch him do it again.
The Gorilla was Outside the bedroom window looking in breathing, tapping, banging on the window frame.
It was some time after that. I wanted to play battle ship or one of the games still in boxes, kept up high to prevent being chewed. [Not always me, remember all those dogs in the building? I’m just the butt of the joke, even long after it applied.]
Anyway, still too small to reach the high shelf in his closet, I pulled open the drawers of his dresser to make an improvised ladder to get high enough to see into the nook.
The gorilla mask and gloves.
>>Day time hallucinations because he had to be inside the house after dark.<<
It had been awhile since they had made fun of That fear. I think even my brother forgot, the mask had been up there. I had been so long enough since he played that game (torture.).
I was crushed.
He saw it, apologized for how stupid he was when he was younger, and threw the mask away. He made a pledge,
I think he was still a boy scout back then. So I took it seriously.
That’s how I know he was the safest person in my toxic home. If he picked on me, it was like he did with the guys at the game table no permanent damage. Little rub here and there, not a target of torment.
My theory was that my brother had his own torment(ors) when he was smaller.
>> When I pulled out the costume (tools of torture) he couldn’t ignore the pain of it and felt bad that he had acted like that (towards anyone.) HE SAW HIS UGLY.
He kept his word.
Making him my hero.
I saw myself as my brother’s “sidekick”, felt right at home at his table and in the game shop/convention scenes.
My brother was a very big guy. I thought he was 8” tall, but it was probably more like 6’4.”
(When your brother is a giant nobody messes with you.)
Bit different when I walk-in solo,
(constant proving ground and skepticism that T&A comes with brains..heart… dignity… feelings.)
(Even and especially from the females in the shop, insta-hate.
Got to spell it out sometime
“I a m n o t a f t e r y o u r m a n.”
… ikr right it’s like they only understood anatomy in parts and not whole systems.)
(No stress, been facing that ugly since puberty. – many-a pre-loaded polite declines and dodge strategies. I shut it down pretty quick… or just never return.)
Still the association with my Big Brother granted a lot of protection when I was a teen. I could just be myself and play.
Running with the Bigs Dogs
on my little cat legs!
Traveler Chimiru 
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