More Memory Work

Ugh! I'm beyond tired! I drove into the "small smoke" (as opposed to the semi big smoke which lies in the other direction) today to pick up the medication for my sore furry kid. I have definitely been in the car way too much over the past couple of days. The good news is that I took my camera along with me and snapped off a few photographs in the town's botanical gardens. The photo to the left would have to be my favourite. I just love the look of that old tree.

Anyway, as earlier promised I've sat down and tried to lose myself in some more memory work. It's resulted in me dredging up a few more memories from my childhood and early adulthood. Really though, that is all that I have been able to do ... dredge up another random list of memories. I don't understand what my pdoc is after. Does he expect a greater emotional depth to these memories? I guess that's it. To be honest though, there is just nothing else there. If I had any emotions attached to the memories that I dredged up today and during my earlier attempts, then I noted that emotion, feeling or whatever the heck you want to call it down with the memory. There is just nothing more to them.

1. When I was ultra young (my parents were still together) the family must have taken a trip to visit my mother’s brother’s family in Sydney. I must have been pretty impressed with one of my older cousins as for a while I took to wearing socks around the house like she did.
2. One of my cousins (from the same nuclear family as mentioned above) was a pilot. He stayed at our house one night during a lay over. I didn’t see him though because he arrived after my bed time and left prior to me waking.
3. I remember my mother describing both her brothers as quite wealthy.
4. My mother mustn’t have been too keen on my father’s family. I don’t think we spent nearly as much time with them as we did her family. I think I might have felt differently about them too.
5. The house my mother, brother and I moved into just after my mother and father split was sort of a split level style home. The layout is quite hard to describe but I can see it in my head. The upper level had all the rooms one would expect of a fully-contained house, i.e. kitchen, toilet, a lounge room and two or three bedrooms. Down an interior flight of stairs, however, was another bedroom which, if I remember properly, sported an ensuite. This bedroom led directly into the back yard of my uncle’s house. The bedroom’s door was always locked though. At the time, the room behind the locked door was an enigma.
6. My Nan (maternal grandmother) had a pet corgi when I was a young child. The corgi was the sister of my childhood pet. I think I liked playing with the dog when I visited Nan's place.
   
7. Nan used to make a dessert called a heavenly tart. I think I used to enjoy eating it.
8. On occasions I used to be babysat by my Nan. I remember liking her when I was a kid.
   
9. I had my first asthma attack whilst I was in primary school during a psych ed lesson. At the time, my class was running around the school’s sports oval. I vaguely remember letting the teacher know that I was having difficulties breathing, but I was encouraged to keep going. The result was me having an asthma attack. I think my mother was annoyed at the teachers for making me keep running.
10. It was difficult to organise play dates with one of my earliest best friends from primary school. I think my mother had to advocate on my behalf with the friend’s mother in order for me to be allowed over to her place to play.
11. After leaving school at the end of grade 10, I attended Kelly Commercial College for around six months. The college was situated in the middle of Brisbane. During lunches, my favourite thing to do was to go to the little shopping complex across the road and buy myself the most delicious nachos I have ever tasted.
12. I remember staying over at a friend’s house one weekend during the time I was attending the college. I think her name was Nicole. We watched a Molly Ringwald movie (hey, it was the mid 80’s!). We also discussed how annoying it was that after you first start shaving your legs, two hairs seem to grow out of the same follicle instead of just one. I also remember her hastily turning down the volume during the movie because there was quite a bit of swearing and she was worried that her parents would hear it.
    
13. About a year later, I gained a junior receptionist position at an electrical engineering firm. I used to buy my lunch in the cafeteria at the bottom of the building in which I worked and walk across quite a busy road to have my lunch in the park. One day I dropped my lasagne in the middle of the road. I remember scraping up the small bit of lasagne that hadn’t touched the road and actually eating it. (Yuck!) By the time I sat down in the park to scavenge the remains of my lunch, I was laughing so hard at what had just happened. I must have looked a sight, sitting there by myself and giggling uncontrollably.
14. While I was working at the engineering firm, I made friends with the other young woman that worked there. We were sixteen at the time. Her family was from New Zealand. We developed a plan on how we were going to both move to New Zealand. Unsurprisingly, both of our mothers freaked at the idea and the idea was scrapped.
15. This friend and I used to hit the Brissie nightclubs straight after work. We worked out that if we entered the nightclub at that time we were never asked for ID. Later on in the night, we used to sit inside the nightclub with our drinks in hand and giggle at all the other underage girls who would try to gain entry but were refused.
16. I experienced what I suppose could be called my first period of depression around the age of sixteen/seventeen. I was working at a dodgy hearing aide manufacturing company at the time. I think I might have lost the plot one morning at work, rang home and then left work and went home. My mother responded to my mini crisis by finding me some counselling with a Baptist Church pastor. Gawd knows why she went the religious route because my family was not religious at all. I ended up attending church for a number of years though, only getting out of the whole Christianity thing mid way through my university years.
    

Yikes, that is a small list but I am going to have to call it a night. I'm in serious need of an early night because I'm off on my usual trip into the semi big smoke tomorrow. Ick! Another four hour round trip. It makes me tired just thinking of it.