I’m at work for the 15th frickin day in a row it seems. On a Saturday. But heaven be blessed, after today I’m finally DONE making up the time I lost over the stupid snowstorm.
I didn’t make it in at 7am every day, but enough days this week to whittle away at the lost time, which is what matters. AND since the building’s open for a whole 8 hours today, I am actually finishing of the adverse weather make-up AND I still get 10 hours of actual, time-and-a-half OT for coming in today. I’m delirious from sleep and so sick and tired of seeing the walls on my cubicle I’m ready to rip them down.
BUT I made it. And she’s totally worth it.
Anyway, I digress. I’m sitting here listening to one of the radio stations that plays 80s music. In my dreamy state this morning, my mind is wandering, remembering the 80s when I first heard these songs coming out of our old stereo.
I’ve seen enough of the I love the 80s” series to get all nostalgic over Garbage Pail Kids and Rainbow Brite, but I don’t think often enough about my own memories 25 or so years ago, fuzzy as they may be.
Some of my favorite times in my life were when I was a kid. Some of the things I thought of today…
My parents were still together, and in love (or so I perceived, anyway, and that’s how I’ll keep it.)
My mom used to use this Mary Kay eye shadow in really dark fashionable colors like plum and charcoal. It was the kind where you’d wet your brush and sweep on the intense shade like watercolor paint. She used to paint her fingernails bronze and wear pretty dresses and high heeled pumps and I thought she was the most beautiful, glamorous girl in the world. She was my “big sister” figure, my young, stylish Mom, and I wanted to be just like her. She went through her makeup bag a couple years ago and actually produced that old eye shadow palette. I balked when she wanted to throw it away. “It hasn’t been used in years,” she said. I took it then, and I still have it.
She used to talk on the phone while washing the dishes, every night. She’d put the cream-colored receiver under her chin and balance it the whole time she’d wash and dry. I thought it was so cool.
We had one of those phones of course that screwed into the wall and the stupid long cord stretched almost the length of the house and was almost always irrevocably tangled. (Isn’t it funny how mundane things like these burn into your brain forever?)
I used to sit Indian-style in this burnt-orange recliner and eat a snack while my brothers and I watched the Disney channel. We used to watch Kids Incorporated, the EARLIEST ones, with Ryan and Gloria and Little Bitty Fergie, and we used to pretend we were them, and build makeshift guitars and microphones for our own “band.” We used to sing songs by The Bangles and Michael Jackson and Billy Joel. Joe used to wear these “cool shades” and I had a wicked safari-print top and leggings that I used to wear when in “rock-star” mode. Danny was so young, but Joey and I made him sit there at our provincial “drum-set” made of wood scraps and sticks, because what’s a killer Rock Band without a drummer?
My Gramma used to come over almost every day and have coffee. When she’d leave the three of us would run to the windows in the kitchen with a view to the driveway and she’d drive super-slow, wave crazily at us, and make all these funny faces the whole length of the driveway. How we used to laugh our heads off! It’s one of my fondest memories of my Gram.
Like I’ve already mentioned, it snowed all the time in NY. It wasn’t unusual to have an inch or two on the ground already at Halloween. I remember trick or treating in a bride or fairy princess costume, and having to wear a bulky sweater and snow pants under my dress. You’re probably thinking how hard it must’ve been to feel like a princess when you’re wearing gigantic pink snow boots, trudging along on the salty, slushy sidewalks! But it was what we did and it was wonderful.
We’d get home and Mom would go through each one of our bags carefully, inspecting each piece of candy before we could have it to trade each other.
Of course, she never found anything, because these were the 80s and things didn’t happen as much as they do today. The world seemed safer and smaller.
We used to go and cut down a real Christmas tree, which was so awesome. My Dad would take the three of us to a tree farm and we’d all four pick out the perfect tree together. We’d all take turns handling the saw for a few seconds, and I remember how sticky the sap was on my palms.
I can still smell the scent of pine on us as we drove home with the tree on the top of the car. We three used to jump out immediately as the car stopped in the driveway, hollering to mom to come out and see what we brought home! We put up the tree and decorated it, and took turns every year to put up the STAR, and believed in Santa and jingle bells and dancing sugarplums.
Looking back as an adult, I’m sure Christmas was always a struggle with four children, but it never showed and there wasn’t ever a Christmas or a birthday or a special moment that isn’t magical in my mind. I’m incredibly grateful to both my parents for that.
My sister Crystal was born in 1989, and I remember the day she came home. She was the most perfect thing I’d ever seen. I was 8, and my mom let me hold her. I felt so proud and grownup! Her first word was “Heather” and she was my little protégé, so much more fun to play dress up with than the boys always were! My sister was always so pretty, like a live baby doll. She was my pride and joy, the one I’d brag to my friends about how cute and fun she was. This of course, was until she learned to walk and would go in my room when I was at school and dump out all my cosmetics and nail polishes! As mad as I was then, I laugh so hard at these things now, knowing they’re just rites of passage.
My Mom used to put her in a Jolly Jumper that hung from a hook in the middle of the kitchen, and this little girl used to bounce all over the place and shriek at the top of her lungs and throw her toys as hard as she could. It was hard being heard in a family of six! She may have come a little later in our lives, but she was always instantly one of the best parts, and things wouldn’t have been the same without her.
The 80s were really good to us. I like to think maybe 25 years from now, hopefully my daughter will have a chance to reminisce on her childhood memories, and remember how happy they were.
