SALE OF FAMILY FARM

Am up earlier than usual.  Today is a fairly significant day in my life, so it's important that my feelings are put in my memory jar.  My memory jar is my blog that's printed at the end of each year.

To the rest of the world, the importance of today means nothing.  That's usually the way it is for all of us.  This is the day that my childhood farm is being auctioned off for sale.  It must be noted that most of my family doesn't recognize my existence.  

Regardless of all the sewage, my mind still lives the life when there were only four of us.  My little bare feet touched uncountable parts of our family farm.  They went from the clover fields to the chicken coop, to the granary to the barn, to the spring house to the timbers.  I'd cup the fresh spring water in my little hands and drink it like champagne.  I played with the dogs, the pigs, the calves, the cows, fed lambs with a bottle and nipple, and was scared to death of the hissing geese that chased me around the yard.  I walked the pastures with my daddy as he cut the tall bull thistles off with a long scythe.  Mom and I took lunches up to the fields for the men during threshing season.  I remember putting the chocolate cake in a picnic basket and packing the sandwiches in a bread sack.  Mom made freshly squeezed lemonade for my Daddy.  That was his favorite.  I remember riding my bike on the hills and up and down our long driveway.  I remember my brother letting me drive his 1956 Ford around the oats shocks in an effort to teach me to drive.  I remember sitting by myself up on a hill behind the granary when I was sad and needed to cry by myself.  There were tiny purple flowers in the grass, and I'd pick them and look at how they were made.

My mind is as clear as a crystal about everything that took place on our family farm.  In my 16th year, our family life changed forever.  My parents and I had to move off the farm.  Today I mourn those 16 years of my life.  Close friends of mine understand all that is not being written in this blog.  Over the years I've shared bits and pieces of the unbelievable occurrences that I call the cancer of my life.  My breast cancer and double mastectomy pales in comparison to the emotional cancer that became a permanent part of my soul at age 16.  

Oh, I could write volumes that a lot of people would find difficult to understand.  My heart and my head hold memories that I wish I could set fire to and burn out of my brain.  I can't do that.  What I am able to do, and have done, is to cut the strings that connect me to those who show the world one demeanor, but hide another.  It took me years to realize that I'd have to either disconnect or suffer consequences.  One thing life has taught me is that what the world sees is many times a comedy.  Life has taught me that trust isn't something one does on a whim.  There are those who share blood who use us, abuse us, and throw us away like used toilet paper.  When I leave this world, I will be able to say that I stayed true to myself.  

Life allows certain individuals to enter our lives, and those individuals are skilled at seeking to destroy us.  Life has taught me that there definitely is evil in this world, but goodness holds the ultimate power.  It may take years for karma to play out, but patience attains all it strives for.  That has been my life experience.

One does not have to comment on the treatment of females in other parts of the world.  We here in America have our own ways of mistreatment.  I grew up in a culture that favored the first-born son.  The daughter was on her own in this world.  Today the family farm will be auctioned, and I would assume the price will be quite substantial.  It pains me to watch others inherit big money when I was given a check for $75 after my daddy died.  That way I could never say that I didn't get anything.  

They say that we are the sum and substance of our thoughts.  Our mind controls what we think about and how we feel.  That is true.  But, it's also true that we can change how and what we think about.  We can refashion our thoughts into that which will sustain contentment rather than stir the fires of resentment.  And, that's where I am now.  It's up to me to flush away the past and look ahead to all the good that's yet to come into my life.  I am blessed with good lasting friendships.  Friends are those in life we choose to love and spend time with.  Relatives are put on us like frosting on a cake, easily scraped off if we don't like 'em.  That is the beauty of friends, and I cherish loyalty and integrity more than all the money in the world.  

My greatest contentment comes from knowing that my boyfriend and I made it to where we are through a lifetime of hard, dedicated work.  Inheritance is something I only hear about, but never experienced.  Oh, except for the $75.  It's comical that I bought a small roll-top desk with that $75.  Right before we moved to Venny, our basement was flooded after a heavy rain.  The roll-top desk was in the basement and the bottom was ruined.  The devil that lives inside of me giggled when the desk was carried to the curb for the garbage truck.  

So it is that today isn't one of my banner days.  Yet, maybe it's going to be the best day of my life.  Maybe once and for all I can disconnect from what may be a basket of make-believe sugar-coated memories.  Instead, I'll remind myself of the snakes and the rats that lived there, too.  That way I'm not going to feel bad, but instead be relieved from the shackles of my little-girl mind.