Two Mares, One Body

Now to start off, as my daughters said, this isn't going to be a dramatic sob story about how cruel my life has been. I...we...are telling you our story. And fair warning, my memories are spotty at best. I've always had bad memory problems. But the bad parts of my life I remember more than the good. So to start, let's go back to when I was about 3-5 years old. I remember bits of that because at that point it felt like I was watching myself outside of my own body.

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This is when...bad things started happening. At this point, my mother was a single parent. We got by just fine and I don't believe I ever asked about my father and why he was never around. I was pretty spoiled by my family and I still am to this day. Mom worked hard and always spent time with me...I wish we spent more time together. I was a well behaved child so she could've taken me to work with her. But sadly she couldn't, so she took me to a babysitter. I wasn't alone though. The babysitter had a daughter one year older than me, so I had a playmate. My god-brother also went there too...but then one day...he just stopped coming. I never knew why...till I found out the hard way.

My babysitter, as it turns out, wasn't the ideal babysitter. She wasn't kind or hugged me when I got hurt or let me play like a normal little girl. She held that facade of a smile when my mother dropped me off and picked me up. But once the door closed, her true face came out. I knew now why my god-brother stopped coming. That woman was a monster in my eyes. She barely let me play with her daughter before just cutting things off and ordering us to take a nap. As a child, like many others children at that age, I was aware of when I had to use the bathroom. I could go on my own. But when I would, she'd be sitting there...right in front of the bathroom door. Though the little hallway was a little dark, I saw there was a belt tightly clasped in her hand. It terrified me. So like backing away from a dangerous animal, I went back to my little cot and fell asleep, only to wake up with wet stains on my clothes. Not liking the fact that I always wet myself during nap time, she would hit me...like beat me as if she actually were my mother! She wouldn't even let me borrow clothes after. Just made me sit in my own wet clothes.

If we went out somewhere and her daughter spotted a toy or something she wanted, just to keep some kind of image, she'd let me get the same thing. But the minute we were all back in her little apartment, she'd take it away. She would feed me sometimes before or around the time my mother would come pick me up. I wasn't a picky eater, but I sometimes got full quickly, so if I didn't eat everything on my plate she didn't let me throw it away. She hit me then make me eat every last scrap on my plate. And she would watch me like a hawk to make sure I do. Once I saw my mother come in, I'd run to her, more than happy to be going home. I would only tell my mother the good things that happen during my time there, never the bad. I always had this foreboding feeing that if I did tell her about the bad stuff, that woman would somehow come to kill me in my sleep. And I was a strong (and slightly emotionally dead) child when it came to that woman. I endured it all until my mother took me away from her. As it turns out, that woman used the money my mother paid her for watching me to put her own daughter in school. I was never more thankful to my mother for this act of kindness. My nightmare was over...for the moment.

Around this time, or maybe a little later, my mother put me in a Pre-Kindergarten school. It was fun. Though at times it was troublesome. Like what was the norm, I was picked up from home and then dropped off at a relative's house until my mother got off from work. I believe my mother said once or twice I had to be picked up from a precinct because the relative that picked me up from the school bus didn't come get be. An insetting experience that I have no memory of. While I did say I was a well behaved child, I was also a very...odd child. I had been turned off to nap time, possibly due to my previous experiences, so when it was nap time I was stay up and sing to myself. It got to the point that the teachers started writing red notes in my notebooks for my mother. Eventually they took my cot away too. I didn't mind. But I wasn't given anything to do in the mean time. No book to read, no drawings to color, no toys to play with, nothing. I was pretty bored, so then I let my curiosity guide me. One day during nap time I got myself into a little trouble. And I use the word little very lightly. According to my mother, I got in trouble because I, for some reason, wandered into the bathroom and kinda flooded it. I dedicate that little experience to the fact that I'm an Aquarius and I have always loved water. Sometimes during mommy/daughter swims, I'd disappear from her sight and end up clumsily swimming almost close to the middle of the pool. After a while, my mother realized that the school I was in wasn't helping me progress. That and I was going to be held back for another year since to get into Kindergarten I had to be 4 years old. Needless to say, she pulled me out. I was sent to a much more suitable baby sitter and friend of my mom, I had a lot more fun there.

Are you still with me? Hope I didn't bore you too much. Don't worry, I will get to how Lotus and Lily came to be. But let's go to the next step down memory lane. And, as in sane as this is, the next school my mother puts me in...I was in the same school from Kindergarten to 8th grade.