Throwback Thursday #45 – Nighttime Rituals

We are back again for Throwback Thursday. This week we are going to explore the nighttime rituals you had as a child.

If you care to join us, it’s easy.

• Write your own post sharing your memories and leave a pingback to this post in the comments.
• You can use the photo above in your post to make it easier to find.
• Tag it with #TBTMemory or #IRememberWhen.
• If you do not wish to write your own post, feel free to tell your story in the comments below.

This week’s prompt is: Nighttime Rituals

You can either free write using these questions as inspiration or answer the question as they are.

1. Did you share a room with a sibling, or did you have a room of your own?
2. Did you resist going to bed or did you go willingly?
3. Did someone put you to bed, tuck you in, or read you a bedtime story?
4. Was there a religious component, like prayers, to your nighttime routine?
5. Did you go to sleep immediately, or lie awake?
6. Did you journal, read a book, talk on the phone or with your siblings, or watch television when you were supposed to be sleeping?
7. Did you ever sleepwalk?
8. Did you remember having dreams? If you dreamed, did you ever have bad dreams? Do you remember any dreams specifically?
9. Were you afraid of the dark? Did you sleep with a nightlight or sneak into your sibling’s or parent’s room at night because you were afraid?
10. Did you have or attend sleepovers or slumber parties? Feel free to elaborate.

My post follows.

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I was never afraid of the dark, but nighttime was when I had all my deep and pondering thoughts. I was about 8 and can remember lying awake in my bed for hours pondering the universe and the idea of infinity. Big thoughts for a young child. I never slept with a nightlight.

I had three siblings. A brother and two sisters. When we were very young, I slept in the room with my brother in bunk beds. My older sisters shared a room. As we got older, I shared a room with my two sisters and my brother got his own room which I thought was extremely unfair.

There was a time I was a brat to my oldest sister. I talked her ear off after the lights went out. Eventually she told me she had a magic ring and when she spun it on her finger, she would go to some magic place and would no longer be able to hear or speak to me. She did a good job conning me because I believed her and would eventually shut up, turn over and go to sleep.

I remember our mother reading us poems and I remember getting tucked in and kissed good night. We also said prayers at the edge of our bed every night.

We only had one television in the house, so no tv for me! I did not read or journal at night, but I did love to talk if anyone would listen. As I got older, I would sometimes sneak into the living room early in the morning, take the  trimline phone and crawl under a blanket and talk to my boyfriend on the phone for hours.

I do not remember having bad dreams or really dreaming much at all. I did have a few very detailed dreams about my grandfather after he passed away. All the dreams had to do with him and communicating with him now that he was dead. They were very specific and I can remember every precise point even today.

I didn’t have a slumber party until about 6th grade. We had seances in our basement and slept in sleeping bags on the cement floor! I attended a few sleepovers when I was younger and also a few in my high school years. One particular night we were camping in a tent in my girlfriend’s back yard. We decided to go TP (toilet paper) a few houses. I remember diving into the bushes when a Police car pulled up. We turned off our flashlights and stayed hidden until he left. Karma did her thing, though. The bushes we hid in were rose bushes and we got a few good scratches for our bad deeds.

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One Liner Wednesday – Maternal Wisdom

“The hurrieder I go, the behinder I get.”
My Mom

One Liner Wednesday is brought to us each week by Linda Hill. Pop over to her place to get the rules and read the contribution of others.

Trying to Embrace a Day of Rest

The last few days have been exhausting for me. The news of the Supreme Court’s revocation of Roe Vs. Wade brings with it a myriad of concerns for the future awaiting my children and grandchildren.

This decision has opened the door on many other challenges to come. They impact my family directly. They impact millions of families directly. The conservative originalist ideas about our constitution are disturbing. As a country we will never agree on our forefather’s intentions and therein lies much of the problem. Lawmakers use their opinions and interpretations to control the population. It is a worrying foreboding of our future.

As I read through and remember the horrible behavior displayed by our lawmakers, I am disgusted. It reminds me of my father’s prayers when he asked for forgiveness of lies of both commission and omission.

I no longer associate myself with any political party. As such, I am prevented from voting in primary elections in my state. I am forever looking for a person of integrity and substance for whom to vote. Sadly, the Supreme Court judges are not elected officials – they are nominated and confirmed by such a small percentage of our population.  And talk about lies of both commission and omission! This is an area where I think our forefathers got it wrong.

Yesterday I went back and watched some of the testimonies from Anita Hill regarding Clarence Thomas. It was disturbing. My mind went back to Trump, then Kavanaugh, on to Clinton, then Ted Kennedy and Chappaquiddick. We continue to invite scoundrels into our most prestigious halls of government. It is past time to wake up.

I could not blog without clearing my head of all the flurry of fear and discouragement of the last several days. This is the beginning of a new level of unrest in our country. I am not sure where it will lead, but I am preparing myself for battle.

My mother was unable to finish college. All extra money was used to pay for an illegal back street abortion for another family member. When I was pregnant with my daughter, a young woman stabbed herself in the stomach with a kitchen knife because she was forced to bring another child in to this world – she could not bear the crying of another child she could not feed.  Another first time mother lost her leg when the doctor stitched a vein closed after her Caesarean. Another friend had to carry a baby she knew was deceased until her body rejected it. She walked around looking pregnant with a dead child inside of her all the while listening to congratulations from well meaning friends who had no idea what she was going through.  These are just a handful I cases I know of personally. Pregnancy is natural yes, but for many comes with a host of life threatening consequences. For each one I know of, there are many more. We have lost our grace and our humanity.

One Liner Wednesday – Be Thankful

Background photo (altered) courtesy of Unsplash

Be thankful not every problem is yours to solve

One Liner Wednesday is brought to us each week by Linda Hill. Pop over to her place to get the rules and read the contribution of others.

On Father’s Day

I have written so many posts about Father’s Day I was not sure what I would write today. Then I ran across this quote and found it inspiring.

“My father didn’t tell me how to live. He lived and let me watch him do it.”

Clarence Budington Kelland

When I think about my dad, I realize this is exactly what he did, as did my two grandfathers.

Fathers are not gods. As children, we witness their successes and their failures, their strengths and their weaknesses, as well as their kindness and their anger.

As children, those observations help form us in one way or another. We may see someone we want to model ourselves after, or we may see someone we want to escape from.

I was fortunate to have a father I loved with all my being. I think I was also fortunate to be the fourth and youngest child (I had three siblings). I realized through my adult years, each one of us had a different father – slightly changed and refined as he learned how to navigate fatherhood.

My father was not a perfect man, nor a perfect father. As I navigated my own life, I knew my children would someday make a similar observation of me as a mother. I, too, had to find my footing, often in difficult times.

On this Father’s Day, I remember my father with great love and respect. I think he may have been his best version of a father when I was an adult. After my mom died, he worked even harder to be the best father he could be. We had long and meaningful talks with no subjects too personal or delicate to discuss.

I was lucky to watch my father live his life. He taught me a lot about love, respect, honesty, forgiveness, and being an imperfect human being.

When he passed away, it was a week before Father’s Day. I never got that last holiday with him, or that last hug I wanted so badly.

Today I remember him with love – a little girl missing her Dad.

Happy Father’s Day.