It's something I simply can't recall; from about age 10 up through age 15, anything less distinct than the most emotionally shocking moments simply don't surface in my mind. Sure, I recall the vagaries; I played Ultrazone a lot; I didn't have many friends; I spoke very little with family and had nothing to do with school. Everything else I can recall from that time, albeit barely, was Matt Gallo being an ass and uncle Jack dying, though I can't place it anywhere in my mind, in time-frame, or anything else somber to be recalled.
This was brought into the most painfully acute focus for me, just now; pictures of a friend, cropping up from her years in those ages, reminded me of exactly what I had to go on from my own early-teen years. The pictures were happy and bright, brimming with memories (albeit, slightly vapid ones, coming from a Barbie-type beauty parlor aimed at the 10-14 dressy-uppy girl demographic) and friendship, memories to transcend just the day of that birthday party and the silly hairstyles this cadre of girls adopted for the occasion.
From my experiences, the ones I suppose I had, I have to ask why they came with less inherent clarity than these girls' happy, cooperative days.
Were there pictures? No.
Did I have friends to recall with? No.
So what makes it more likely to be recalled than anything I did in those years? Just that it was among others, socially exploring more ground than I could ever probe in my loneliness? Or is it my not-so-secret desire to put on makeup and prance around in frilly hairstyles?
So I guess the question is less 'do you remember it', but 'did it happen to you?', a distinctly understandable question given my history of trauma and emotional respite (that is, hiding.) A combination, perhaps, of emotional and social retardation, alongside severe depression and a wholehearted lack of interesting events in that time span simply hide every fact, every date, every event and every decision I made. Couple this with an underwhelming scholastic experience and a deadly addiction to internet gaming, and it's no surprise that my youth was, well, fucked up.
But here I am, definitely able to recognize the degree to which I've had to reconcile and repair the damage I've caused myself-- or that's just sort of 'happened' to me. Things 'happening' always seem to be the biggest problem in my life, not that they have negative consequences but that they're keeping me from acting on my own-- see the entire last paragraph as for further impetus to why THAT might be. With an inability to act with clarity comes an inability to recall with clarity, and, before servicing my crippling emotional failures and psychologically neurotic retreats, were exactly what I hid in.
The question still arises, however, of why I had no friends in that time to slap me out of my strangely depressive funk. The easiest answer, and until now my standby, is that I was an emo shit. That, and my school consisted of the 181 richest, whitest, and most pompous social rejects ever to utter forth from the loins of Madison's socialites-- myself included, of course. To this day, I watch friends interact with other human beings-- texting, Facebooking, even talking to them to their faces-- far more intuitively and confidently than I am able to do, a slight irony given my seemingly-eloquent nature. Is it just that I'm too different than they are? Could it even be that my wordiness and worldliness is what deposes people from my presence as-is?
My apathy precipitated friendlessess, which in turn precipitated apathy. Quite an irony, I think. It's that apathy that manifested itself as a complete inability to make decisions, which, again, is what I mourn the loss of more than any memories I lack. Afer all, isn't that just what everyone else was exercising to make themselves happy? I can only imagine what I would be like to this day had I been able to act on my whims or desires. I'd certainly be more normal, I can tell you that-- though a normal what, I can't say.
