My home was never empty, never quiet; mom was always there, busy with laundry, dinner, or work. My dad was also always busy Monday through Saturday, working in farm labor as a water ditch driver. I was the oldest, from my siblings, and from all the neighborhood kids who helped keep my family house lively. We roamed the empty lots of future new houses being built on our block; we built forts and dug large holes in the ground and called it adventure.
I had my own desk top computer, it was bulky and loud and the screen was always too heavy to pick up to move, so I left it stationed in my parent's living room. During the hot summer months of vacation, I would typically spend most of my freedom outside with the other twelve kids. However, on the few days I wasn't outside running rampant, I could be found sitting, hunched over in front of the computer screen.
I use to write little secret stories, hide them in some file on my precious computer. It was like make-believe and pretend dress up, except this time, in words. I had a favorite character I liked to always write about....he was older, around thirty. He had sun-kissed, caramel-brown skin, black hair. I pictured him always wearing a white t-shirt and light washed jeans- black shoes. He drove an old, red sports car and he always had money.
Looking back, I can see why I would dream of such a character. An unknown man who felt so important to me- with his red sports car and his skin that tanned like mine, and the money he acquired so freely. As a twelve year old girl, I dreamt of the man I would have called Father. The man who I thought would one day, like in my stories, visit me and take me for long drives to the beach and buy me my favorite ice cream. I had never know a man who had so much extra time to spend with just me.
I forgot about these sacred stories I wrote in my childhood. They were locked away and hidden in files, not on my 2000 Windows 7 computer, but in my twenty-one year old brain.
I forgot about these, until one day, I was driving back to my parent's house. I had a flashback of a time that didn't exist.... I was twelve again, with the wind flowing through my long, brown hair. The sun kissed my honey skin and I was happy.
Where did this imaginary memory come from? I asked myself, as I pulled up to my parent's house and parked my little red car on the memory-filled block of dreams. Instantly, I remembered him and how he used to be my favorite imaginary character.
It wasn't until then, I remembered these stories I used to intricately write, hide, and keep for myself. How I wrote them so young, is amazing to me.... but the thing that amazes me the most, is when I bought my car, it was from a man with his name. A man who owned this red Dodge Neon Sports Edition car, had this brown skin and black hair that I so dearly didn't remember.
So now, when I drive my old, hand-me-down I don't mind the dusty smell or the stained interior. This little red sports car reminds me of the twelve year old girl I used to be, who loved her parents who worked so hard, who spent hours outside adventuring, and who wrote stories of a dream man who's still only just a dream.
