The Things I Will Never Live Down: The Childhood Years

You know those things that you do that you will never live down?

Like ever.

I know there's a couple in my life that I feel I need to defend because comments about them are never going to go away.

Like ever.

And I need you to know that it was a very honest mistake.

To make sure I covered it all, I asked on Facebook what were some of the things that my friends and family feel I will never live down in their eyes.

My word.

I have a lot of explaining to do.

*crack knuckles*

Let's begin, shall we?

Growing up I had the privilege of living next door to my grandparents Martin, who were the most amazing people in the world and will continue to be heroes and examples in my eyes.  Their influence on me as a child directs me still as an adult.

They had the coolest tree in their front yard.  It was huge.

Ginormous even,

It had a perfect flat base at the top of the trunk, in between where all the giant branches started breaking off into separate directions.  Two branches, one on either side of the tree, branched out just vertically enough that you could lift your arms above your head and wrap them around one of those branches, and walk your feet up the trunk until you were in the middle of the tree.

I spent pretty much every day of my childhood in that tree, and so did most of my childhood friends.

And childhood boyfriends.

I was reminded, on this quest of things I will never live down, of a time when I was up in this tree with one of these boys. Who knows what game we were playing.

But that boy tried to kiss me.

And I resisted.

And I fell out of the tree.

Apparently one of my friends is still telling this story to people she knows.

And I guess I don't really have a defense to this except if you don't want to be kissed, then you certainly shouldn't have to be kissed.

At any cost.

Growing up next to my grandparents also meant that we had a huge backyard.  The two backyards were left open and connected between the two houses with a swing set on one end, and a sandbox under an apple tree on the other, and a huge stretch of green grass in between.  There was a cement path that led from the driveway of my house, to the back patio of my grandparents house.

My parents, Dick and KC, like to tell the story of how one fine summer evening we were all sitting together on my grandparents patio, when, for whatever reason I decided I needed to run home for something.  In the awkward stages of pre-teendom, I tripped over my own feet and somehow, in one fall, managed to scrape both the front, and the back of the same knee.

Talented, I know.

In my defense:  when I realized that I was going to fall from my trip, it crossed my mind that I most certainly did not want a scraped knee.  So I stuck my hands out and as soon as they hit the ground I flipped myself over on my butt to avoid hitting my knees on the cement.

I think this is a rather clever thought process.

Unfortunately, by the time I had fallen enough for my hands to hit the ground, my knee did too.  And when I flipped myself over, "mid-fall" as I used to describe it, I went over the small lip of cement that was between the path and the patio, and it then scraped the backside of my knee as well.

Can you blame a girl for trying?

This post is getting long and I still have a few to tell from when I was a teenager and then some to tell as an adult.

I think I might need to turn this into a series.

But these means if you have stories of things you feel, in your eyes, I will never live down, please tell me.  I would love to defend myself.

Tomorrow:  The things I will never live down: the teen years HERE
The things I will never live down: the adult years (so far) HERE