The apartment

When I think back on the apartment what comes to mind isn't the two small rooms or the fact that we only moved in there because my mom was mad at my grandmother and felt like we had to get her own place. When I think of the aprtment, I don't think of the inside at all actually. I never spent much time in our apartment. Instead, I spent time in Bea's apartment. Bea was Elly's babysitter. She was a heavy set balck woman with three daughters. Wendy was my brothers' age. Xamara was somewhere in between. I would say about four year's older than me

and kerri was only a year or two older than me. Bea wasn't just a babysitter. She spent a lot of time with us even when she wasn't getting paid. Elly was just a baby and she would often send her daughters over just to bring me and Elly over because she missed us. We ate dinner atBea's house a few nights a week. We played at Bea's house all day when we weren't in school.

The thing is, Bea wasn't really there, it was mostly just us kid. Wendy, Xamara, and Kerri were probably the first people to intoroduce me to the world outside of my house. Sure, my siblings and I were always tramping through the woods, but Bea's kids knew everything. They taught me about love, and told me more about sex. I hadn't even heard of anal sex until they told me that you could get pregnant from it! Of course, they didn't tell me that stuff until years later. In fact, I remained friends with Bea's children for most of my life. We lost touch after five or six years. The last time I saw them I was a teen and we went over to stay the night.

No, there isn't much I can tell you about the apartment. It was small and sparse. My mother was still wroking all the time, and Steve was too. We lived in that place for about a year before we moved on. All I can say is that in the time that my bunkbed sat in that little room in the apartment, my home was Bea's house. I still think about her and her kids to this day.

Dear apartment,

Remember when Wendy, Xamara, Kerri and I used to look out at the building next door and talk about how nice it looked and how we thought life was much better over there? I think maybe we were wrong.

Love,

Robin

Mamaw's house

I have spent a lot of time in my grandmother's house throughout my life. She moved into the house when my mom was a teen and still lives there to this day. Mamaw's house was always a refuge for my family. Right now two of my uncles and a cousin live there with her. When I was six, I lived there. Along with my mom, step dad and brother. Aaron and Lindsey visited less often when we were there. There simply wasn't enough room for them. At the time we shared two rooms upstairs in Mamaw's house. Andy and I were in one, and Steve, Elly and mom were in another. I didn't know it back then, but Steve hadn't paid the rent at the Town house. He spent all out money on drugs instead.

As much as Mamaw's house was a safe haven for us, it was a house of horrors for my mom. My grandma is a compulsive liar. She lies to lie about those in the family. It has gotten really bad since my grandpa passed away 5 years ago. Back then her lies were that she had custody of my brother and I. I remember hearing her say this to people when she picked us up from school, and not knowing what to say. It was strange time living with my grandma. On one hand sitting in her living room watching dinosaurs with my whole family is something I will always cherish. On that same hand, if you ever need anything you could go to my grandparents. On the other, she never really accepted that my mother had grown up. She never really approved of the way anyone chose to live their lives if they didn't live in under her thumb. My grandmother is a complex woman.

If you hadn't noticed, I have a thing for Christmas. I love it. Christmas, however doesn't love me. The Christmas I spent living at my grandma's house was the first of many Christmases I spent sick. I was also probably the poorest Christmas we ever had. I woke up early Christmas morning vomiting. It really wasn't pleasant considering the only bathroom in Mamaw's house is on the first floor. So my mom brought me the big bowl and I laid in bed for a while before everyone else started stirring. No one wanted me to be left out so my grandma brought me downstairs to her bed. Now, my mother doesn't like sick or injured kids. If you were bleeding, she told you to clean it up and get it away from her. If you were puking she said to stay away from her so she didn't catch it. My grandmother letting me lay in her bed while puking my guts out was a gift enough.

I only got a quick glance at my pile of toys on my was to Mamaw's bed so one by one my family brought in my toys and laid them around the room for me to play with. Each gift that was opened was opened in the bedroom where I could see. Each gift I got was something that probably cost my mother $5 or less, but every single thing was amazing in my six year-old eyes.

The Christmas I was six was my poorest, sickest Christmas ever and definitely one of the most memorable.

Dear Mamaw's house,

You aren't always a happy place, but you are the only house that has ever been consistent in my life. You are a place I know I can always turn to when I need a roof over my head, and a big bowl to throw up in.

Love,

Robin, now and always.

The town house

Sometime around the time that I started first grade we moved into a town house one city over from mine. The town house was nice, it was no Ashland, but it was nice. There were two bedrooms upstairs and a den where my step brother and step sister slept when they were visiting which was every weekend, holiday and all summer long. My mom and Steve slept down stairs with baby Elly. Now, I can't tell you much about the town house. I was never there, to be honest. What I can tell you about though was the swamp.

The swamp was probably not a swamp at all. It was an area toward the end of the road, blocked off with a do not enter sign. Nearly every day my siblings and I (minus baby Elly who just jumped in her Johnny jumper all day long) would decide we were going to the swamp. The swamp was our place. Every kid had one, I had a lot over the years, but this was my first. With in the first few weeks, we had named every puddle, road and landmark in the swamp. I use the term we loosely. I was the youngest one, I didn't get to name anything. Still, it was our place.

I wish I could give an example of all the amazing things that we did there, but I don't recall. We mostly just spent hours doing nothing, walking along paths, talking, running. At the end of the day, we'd exit through the back where a tire swing hung on a tree, and we'd swing for another hour or so before we had to be home for dinner. We always had to be home for dinner. If we were late, it meant no dinner and standing in the corner until bed time. That stuff didn't matter in the swamp though. It was a place where kids could just be kids.

We didn't right in the swamp, not that I recall. We didn't go running home to tell on each other. The swamp was a place where we could all just love each other for a moment before we went back home to chaos. I wish I had an exciting story to tell about the town house, but that was it. I moved into the town house just before I started first grade. One day I came home and there was a moving van outside. I don't know how long we lived there, but I know that my mom drove me to my same school for a while longer before they discovered we lived out of district and sent us back to the school I went to for kindergarten. I spent one half of the school year at that other school. By Christmas time we lived with my grandma. We couldn't have lived there more than four or five months.

Dear town house,

I didn't realize until now just how little time I spent with you. I always told myself it was six months, but I guess it wasn't even that. I think the only reason you stand out in my memories of all that houses we lived in, some of which I can't recall, is because of the swamp. I think that was the first place I ever felt at home.

Love,

Robin, if you even remember me

Toy Store

Anyone who knew me as a kid would tell you I had a big imagination. I didn't need toys to have fun. Toys were just accessories. Still, I had toys. I had a lot of toys. So many in fact, that the basement of Ashland was full of them. So many in fact, that when I played with my toys, I pretended I was selling them. I can't tell you if this was Aaron's idea or mine because we always played together, but playing toy store was something that happened in Ashland and many houses to follow at least a few times a week. This wasn't just any toy store though, this was a toy store in LA. That meant we sold toys to all the famous people we loved. Lucile Ball was our favorite frequent customer. She'd call us up and ask if we had something in stock then stop in and we'd chat for a while before we handed her the teddy bear she had come all the way to our store to get. I know what you're thinking, aren't you only twenty five? Yes, I am. I just watched a lot of Nick at night. Most of the famous people who came into our store were either dead or very old by the time they came by, but in my mind they were still young. Maybe it was a time traveling toy store. I don't know. I didn't think these things out, I was only six.

Speaking of time Travel. Shortly after we moved into Ahsland mom got a new tv. This was one of those old wooden Tv counsoules that I'm sure other famalies ahd back then, or maybe it was just us. The screen wasn't very big, but it was bulky. That meant it came in the biggest box I'd ever seen in my life. I'm pretty sure it's the biggest box I will ever see in my life. That box fit all four of the older kids in it easily which meant it was the perfect time machine. We stuck it in the basement, cut a door out and drew buttons all over the inside. With that box we traveled to times we'd only heard of. Times so scary that we never actually exited the time machine. We'd just listen to the dinsaurs outside in ancient 1962, and then push some buttons and head back to 1992 where we could go eat some ramen noodles for lunch before recording our radio show in Andy's bedroom.

When I was a kid, imagination was everything. Toys just helped us along the way. My mom filled our house with every toy we could have ever wanted though. I think it was her way of making up for the lack of time she spent at home or the fact that her husband was an asshole. We didn't need that crap though. Sure it was nice to have your choice of tewenty different guns when we played spies in the front yard, and I admit, I did enjoy owning at least fifty barbies, but I'm pretty sure weather I had a whole store full of toys or not Lucy would have still stopped by several times a week.

Dear Ashland,

I can't say it was you that made my imagination so amazing. I'm pretty sure I would have played those games in whatever house my mom and Steve had chosen to buy,. Still, when I think back to the first time I played toy shop, time machine, radio show, spies, princess, wedding, or the first time my barbies ever had sex, it's you I will think of. Mom left most of those toys in your basement when we left. She even left the time machine. I hope that if you were alive and not just a house and you were a little smaller you would use that time machine to travel back to the days when your basement was filled with dinosaurs. Those were some good times we had. Sorry it only lasted a little more than a year.

love,

Robin

Ashland

I was in shock the first time I saw the house we called Ashland. It was huge! Maybe now that I am an adult it wouldn't look so big, but compared to the place I grew up in, it was a mansion. The floors were wood and very slick. So of course the first thing my new siblings and I had to do was skate across them in our socks. I think that was the first time I really started to like Aaron and Lindsey. Anyone who liked skating in their socks was okay with me.That first night we ordered pizza and played sumo wrestling in the den and life was perfect. Ashland was big and bright, and we had our whole lives ahead of us. I had two extra siblings and a step dad who would all love me forever.

We had a big dining table in Ashland. It easily seated our whole family of six with room for a couple more. We didn't eat dinner there much. Mostly these tables were used for 'family meetings'. Family meetings was Steve's nice way of saying someone is getting their ass beat. He'd sit us all down and talk about what had gone wrong, and ask us who had committed the crime or maybe why we had committed the crime. He would dismiss Lindsey because she always told, and give the rest of us a spanking.

I'm sure you are thinking this seems fair, but it wasn't. Steve spanked for everything. He would bend you over and smack the back of your bare legs with his belt. My mom didn't believe in spanking so when we told on him he would laugh and say 'I just swatted them' or something like that. Spankings weren't so bad though. What was really bad was the corner. We would have to stand in the corner for hours. I knew it was hours. I would sit there and listen to his stupid football games or he would say that I had to stand there until my mom got home from work. In cases like these I would listen to him and whatever kid wasn't in trouble eating dinner while I starved. My feet would hurt, my stomach would grumble and I would be sent to bed just in time for mom to get home. Then the next day he would tell me it was 10 minutes that I was there.

One day Steve held a family meeting about a window that had been broken by a baseball. He told us his usual line that we would all be spanked if we didn't tell. Then he added a 'starting with the youngest' in a tone that told me he thought I was responsible. I don't get why he would suspect a 5 year-old who had never owned a baseball in her life, but he did. So I confessed. 'It was me' I admitted. He didn't ask details. He didn't even ask which window it was. I didn't know which window it was. He just spanked me and let the other kids go. The next time around another kid confessed, and that is how it went for a long time. We sacrificed ourselves to save the other kids. Years later I learned it was Andy who broke the window, and it was a window in the den, but it didn't matter then. He'd taken a few blows for me too.

Ashland was a happy house though. It's where I learned to love Lindsey and Aaron. We played spies in the back yard. We played toy shop in the basement, we recorded radio shows, we played dodge ball in the streets. We did anything we could to stay out of the house, but mostly we did anything we could to help each other.

We began a tradition of holding family meetings ourselves where we would talk about what games we were going to play that day or what our parents were up to. Our family meetings were happy ones. They included the real family, the four of us. One day Lindsey called a meeting. This one wasn't a happy one. She informed us that while she was using our parent's bathroom she'd discovered something that would change our lives at Ashland forever.

"Mom is pregnant" she said.

Dear Ashland,

I suppose I should hate you for all the bad things you taught me. You taught me about pain, and evil. You taught me to be jealous of that little baby and to be meek around that large man. You taught me that not everything is what it seems and that you can't always rely on everyone. For those reasons I should hate you, but I don't.

It was those days I spent with you that made me who I am. You taught me about a lot of awful things ,but you also taught me about love. Real love, not the generic love we give away every day. You taught me about sacrificing for others. You taught me that family isn't made by birth or by a marriage certificate. Family is those who chose to love you unconditionally and who chose to sacrifice for you as well. There were a lot of tears spilled on your shiny wood floor, but there was also a lot of laughter that echoed off of your walls.

Love,

Robin 20 years later

Seeing red

I've lived in a lot of houses in my life. Some were big, some were small. Sometimes we were rich sometimes we were poor. I've never really had a home, but the houses that I lived in defined me in a way. I could still draw you a map of almost every one. I could still tell you what the sun looked like shining on the panel walls of the house where my first memories take place. I would like to think that years from now I will be able to tell you about the three bedroom apartment my fiance and I rent now. I got attached to these houses despite the sort amount of time I was in each one. I started to leave letters behind for the next person to own that house. I wonder now if anyone ever found a letter of mine. I wonder what I would write in the letters to my houses if I was looking back now.

Dear Green house,

I was eager to leave you, and for that I am sorry. You are the first place I can ever remember living. Sure, there was barely any room for the Christmas tree in the corner of your living room and maybe I did have to share a room with my big brother, but I'll tell you a secret. I love my brother, I loved him even back then. I love him almost as much as I love Christmas.

Love,

Robin 20 years later.

I think I was probably two the first time I remember peeking around the corner to see if Santa had come.

"he's here" Andy said "Do you see him? I see red."

My eyes widened as I looked closer. I didn't see shit. I was a toddler, and Andy might as well have been grown at seven years old. Why was I always the voice of reason?

"Look, right there" he pointed toward the Christmas tree. I squinted my eyes trying to see what he was seeing. Then I finally got it, Santa wasn't real. It was a game. It wasn't about a fat guy in a suit, it was about giving, and love and imagination. Okay, maybe at two I didn't get all that, but I did get that Andy didn't see any more than I did. Andy saw Santa because he wanted to.

"I see him" I said. "I see his red suit"

I spent two more Christmases in that house. I would wake up there, then walk across the street to my mom's parents house and then after that my dad would pick my up and bring me to visit his family.

My last Christmas there we were no longer alone. Mom had moved in her new boyfriend and his kids. There were two of them, Aaron and Lindsey. I had met his kids before, we had some of the same friends so I didn't mind if they took over our living room. I had quit a crush on Aaron in fact.

I remember that last Christmas well. Mom, Lindsey and I went to the toy store. We turned down this isle filled with stuffed bears. In my memory the shelves reached to the ceiling, and the isle went on for miles. It was the most amazing thing I had ever seen in my short life. As an adult I think we were probably just at Kmart, but I would never tell little me that. To little me, we were in stuffed bear heaven.

"I want to buy my friend a bear" Lindsey said "will you help me pick one?"

What? I thought, her friend? what about me! I wanted a bear! I never got anything I wanted. Well screw her friend. Was getting her friend the ugliest bear I could find. So I search and searched until I found a grey bear. Grey is boring, no one likes grey. To make it worse his bow tie was plaid. I hated plaid. I was sure her friend would hate it, and it served her right.

I don't remember what I got that year for Christmas except for that stupid Grey bear, and I loved it. It didn't matter to me then that it was Grey or had a plaid bow tie, it was mine. 'Grey bear' as I so creatively named him, still sits in my bedroom with it's nose hanging off, and it's fur ratty from my sleeping with it every night. It was the first and best Christmas gift my big sister ever gave me.

We moved out of that house the summer that I turned four. It was too small for four kids and two parents, and mom said that it wasn't safe to live there anymore. A few months later I stood on the hill across the street and watched the city tare down the green house along with the houses on either side of it. The lots where the three houses once stood were bought by the church behind it. Now, they use the area to play games and even to park on crowded days, but when I drive past that empty lot around Christmas time I'm pretty sure I still see Santa.