Too Much Information?

I wonder sometimes about ripping off these bandages outside of the comfort of a journal's pages. So much of what I have shared represents not only a painful part of my past - but of my family who lived through it. A therapist might label it "attention-seeking behaviour" and perhaps there is a grain of truth in that. While I like to think about my motivation as altruistic, it has consequences for the people I love most. I guess I hope the fact we can share some of this more openly allows us all to let some of the hurt go...and remember that outside of all the trauma, there was and is great and abiding love. In so many ways Pine Falls was a magical place to me, filled with sadness, yes, but also with funny, happier moments - like my extended family's unsuccessful efforts to wean me off my soother and blanket obsession - capped off with my sister screaming "let her have it, let her have it" when someone dared to put the soother out of my reach - like she was tending some crazed junkie. My 1st attempt at a lemonade stand in Pine Falls that ended with three unkempt adults rolling on our grass and a police presence (it was my drunken customers who were responsible...not I...and I should clarify they were drunk before they had the lemonade and were hauled away in a police car). Buttons the kitten who we only recently learned did not run away as we believed (my sister led the long and unsuccessful search party) but was instead driven by my mom's aunt to a farm where presumably she led a happy and much quieter life (the cat, not Aunt Cora). My first confrontation with a lone bag-piper while innocently riding my tricycle - installing a life-long hatred I carry to this day. My Papa's dislike of his neighbour's small dog - which infected me like a virus - leaving me racing away from it's clutches when I would go on my daily visit. My sister at five years old firing Mrs. Dawson - the saintly woman who looked after us (for free) when our mom was at the hospital because she was always a wee bit bossy that way and clearly couldn't leave it up to my mother to manage the hired help. So all these moments and so many others make me smile and I hope Aunt Lynda, if you're reading, make you smile too.