Growing Up Sheltered: Part 1

Now before you put on your therapists specks and stare at me from across the room like an ape, let me explain a few things.

1. There are many different kinds of sheltering. I had two kinds; one where I was sheltered in a certain world, and the other where I was sheltered from reality.

2. Sheltering does not equate to ignorance. You allow yourself to remain ignorant. If after the sheltering period ends, you still refuse to assimilate to the real world then you have bigger problems.

3. Not all sheltering is bad, but it does make you sort of co-dependent on others during periods of distress in your life and that's when you find out who your real friends and family are.

I was a really lucky child. In fact, my life shouldn't have been as perfect because on paper my parents survival rate would have been on the lower end of slim to none. My Dad graduated college with an English degree, which meant he worked in retail and taught college courses at night so I basically saw a lot of different kneecaps in my formative years. I still love college campuses though, all of them feel a little familiar, like Summer homes. Also, I like adults. I always have. Something about my character, has always felt older and more at ease in the company of people 20 plus years older than me. I don't know why that is, but it just happened.

My Mother had unrealistic expectations of a man with an English degree, and in some ways he had unrealistic expectations of my Mom who decided to stay at home with me. No, you do not need to reel the Betty Crocker/June Cleaver B-Roll, because there wasn't one. My Mother was never a classic beauty, but when she really tried it was an incredible sight to behold. She knew the perfect way to roll my hair, and how many pins that needed to be put into my ballet bun. She could put on lipstick while driving, and put on mascara while charging through green lights. Her beauty was in her precision, and meticulousness, but in many ways I think that's what drove her batshit crazy.

So, one day my English major Dad was royally laid off by the company that he had been with for over 5 years. It was the first time that I had ever heard my parents worrying about money. About what we would do in case of a massive fall out, and that moment when my Dad walked through the door defeated is when my panic attacks became reality. My Dad came home from that work trip looking worried, scared, and upset. I was angry for him.

How the hell do you get laid off? Who the f*ck decides these things? How are all those other people indispensable except you?

I lived in a cave. I knew what the folded green bills that my Mother gave me for lunches meant, but I didn't understand how much it cost to live in my tiny little bubble of a world.

My sheltering from reality came to an abrupt halt for a second time, when my Mother packed up and left when I was 12. For awhile, I could feel the seams ripping in my parents marriage although there were already tons of holes and then patches put over them.

Prozac.
Therapy.
Family therapy.
Family vacations.
North Carolina.

Maybe that's why I ended up here? North Carolina has always been sort of the Switzerland of my life.  Full of life, blank, and neutral, and its where my parents were the happiest. Except for the lead, gritty, underbelly of it all which I discovered here, (in a different town when I was 18). I go back to the lead underbelly every once in awhile, it's like a relapse. I hate myself for it the next morning, but I miss the parties!

Anyway, like everyone my reality is a little skewed. Obviously, but like any other starving artist I dared to be a little different. I surrounded myself in my early twenties with substances, books, alcohol, music, and hipster culture. Then it was my turn to be a beautiful sight to behold, and was I ever! I got a job at a bar. My parents drank at home, but I had never seen drunk people like this. I knew what it was like to be tipsy, but never falling down, blackout intoxicated. I caught people, in the heat of the moment hooking up in the bathroom. I saw breakups, first kisses, and foreplay on the dance floor. I was guarded though, and my participation was sort of scaled back. I was in self-preservation mode because like every other good sheltered girl, it's scary to think that my kneecaps could become bloody and bruised. The world was a battering ram with a sword, breathing hot fire and it was coming straight for me.

My Dad thought I was a strung out, drunken mess, and he was none too pleased about his grown up daughter who used to wear bows in her hair was now working in a sin factory. I loved it. My first taste of real rebellion, and I had no idea what I was going to do with it.

xo,

C