i dont think i miss the way my step-mom slowly remodeled my house to make it not so much my mom's, but more or less hers. i dont think i miss the way my dad would come home really late after dinner and leave before i even realized it was morning time and would be gettin up in a few hours. i dont tihnk i miss the way my brother always hid out in his room, drawing or listening to his radio turned down so low that no one but him could here it or when hed stay outside as long as he could playing basketball before he got yelled at and damn near slapped. i know i dont miss the dorky clothes i wore or the modest lifestyle we had. i remember that i actually owned a pair of plain white leather keds like the ones that wore back in the fifties that i wore all the time cuz it was either that or sandals. i remember i always had to wear a headband, i think it was because my step mom said i had too much hair and it needed to stay out of my face and out of my way....more like her way if you ask me. i remember having ribbons and playing with barbies til i was about eleven or twelve, because i had no friends and my brother was long gone. i wasnt allowed to go outside by myself unless i was mowing which i only started doing because my brother was gone, my dad worked 24/7, and my step mom thought i needed some responsibility. i remember that one of the coolest things i thought was getting a remote with my VCR so that i could sit on my daybed about 5 feet back and watch movies that id already seen 50 times over. thanks to that period in time i can now recite to you homeward bound, the movie. i was bought almost every sherly temple movie that you could find because she was supposedly a good influence....she was what? FOUR! i remember how my brothers room slowly emptied itself and the door was always shut, and one day i walked in there when no one was home- the room wasnt empty like i had expected. i guess i probably hoped it was empty cuz at least that ouwld have been better than what i saw- they had put a tredmill, a desk, a excercise bike, and a tv in there and turned it into a small workout room- like my brother was never even there. all of his pictures were slowly taken off the wall and his name was hardly even spoken anymore....like he was a ghost. he was no ghost to me. in fact, i was always dying to get back to him. my brother was so distant though, when i was at my dads house. when mom called and i asked to talk to him, hed only talk for about 3 minutes. just long enough to say hi hope im ok and survivin the "bitch" as he called her and making sure i wasnt puttin up with any shit from my dad. ya know, normal brotherly love- or at least thats what i considered it since i didnt know any better. then hed tell me he loved me, he missed me, and hed talk to me later......that was it. i guess since my step mom expected to forget my brother, then she expected me to forget him- at least while i was in HER house anyways. like i always say, i got bubbled stupid......

so if they bubbled me stupid..........then why do i miss it? i dont miss the bubble- i miss the people in it. my friend once claimed that she had this "disease" that was temperature controlled and said that she was gonna live in a bubble. i told her i wasnt gonna come visit her in the bubble but to have fun....she said "PARTY IN THE BUBBLE!" thats almost what it seems like now. theres a party in my bubble but im not invited- well actually i dont wanna go into the bubble- i just want the party. they say that you always end up back at ur roots- i dont know what to think cuz half of me hopes its true and the other half says SNAP OUT OF IT.

i feel like everyone knew everyone but me. i was nicks little sister or mom pat's granddaughter- every once in a while they'd ask if i was debee and pat's daughter which just made things worse cuz when i was little i couldnt stand to think about the divorce. it was too hard i guess or maybe i just didnt understand it but nevertheless i knew it was bad and that i cried. i remember this one time where my mom and dad stood outside yelling about my brothers shirt when she came to pick me up. they yelled for what seemed like an hour- in little kid time i bet it was only a few minutes but i remember it cuz it happened at the corner of my house on the sidewalk. i walked to ask my mom if we were gonna leave or if i was stayin with daddy and my brother walked over to me, picked me up, and carried me to the car where he turned on the radio really loud. i guess it was so that i couldnt hear the yelling but i just remember him being so little- but he was so big at the same time. i must have been 4 or 5 which made him about 9. there were so many times i remember like that, where my brother saved me from everything. sure i had parents- 4 of them eventually before i turned 7, 8 grandparents....but only one brother.

he never bubbled me stupid. in that small town where everyone knew everyone but me, he always told them who i was. thats why i only knew his friends and never had any of my own.......cuz everyone that knew my brother, knew me..........

so i lived in a small house in a small town i like to call complicated nowhereville. the town was one of those places where everyone knows everyone.......except for me. i was a part timer in their eyes, i mean if they even had eyes or saw me at all. most of the time i felt invisable anyways. i mean i only knew my brothers friends and our relatives. i knew two other people in that town and they were workers in the local grocery store. i never knew their names though i just knew them because every time i saw them they always smiled at me. they must have known my parents though, in face they more than likely did since everyone knew everyone but me, becuz they knew everything about me. one of the women worked in the meat department behind the window where you can see people chop up and butcher the meat right in front of u. she always scared me, but no matter how scared i was of her i always walked back into the big white butchering room to stand about 3 feet from her, smile, wave, and run back out.....i must have been a strange child cuz i definately acted like i owned the place. the other woman worked at the cigarette booth- i must have been exposed to a lot of things cuz it seems like ive known her forever, dont know her name either- but i was never around anyone that smoked until i was 8 or so when my step mom's parents came about........i remember that grocery store. it was as big as a kroger but so darn personal....guess thats what u get from living in a small town where everyone knows everyone but me.....

bubble me stupid- yea thats what they did alright. bubbled me stupid. they made me live my life in a bubble of paranoia thinkin that everything led to a chain reaction and that my slightest mistake would bring a downfall of horrible events to our little house. "dont answer the phone" they said- it could be my mother! for heaven's sake that would just be dreadful and surely id be brainwashed to thinkin they were the devil. oh no the callerID isnt there for you to use, its for us.......mmhmm riiiiiiight...........bubble me stupid.......yea thats what they did alright.