The first months of my "four year sentence" I'd assigned to myself, not yet guesseing how long and hard it would be. Still half way wishful on the college thing--but I set so many deadlines and let them go by... My bad? Not really; I was just not strong enough to break the chains and ties that bound me.
Aug 1, 1962
Hello me! I got up at 6:30 to silence my noisy little alarm clock. I took a few minutes to wake up and then I marched out bravely to meet the day. I did all my usual morning chores of course but on a new schedule more or less. With Annie gone, poor Chip was confused. No mail for me today. When I came home, I read one of my library books. Then it was lunch time. I cut out a pink shirt and then wrote a letter to Jose. I ‘fessed up about the letter return bit etc. I really don’t know why. Something just made me do it. He’ll probably be thoroughly riled but we’ll see. Charlie Mike went up but he didn’t take my letter so I had to do it. I didn’t mind though. It was rather cloudy but I rode out anyway. It didn’t rain so I really had nothing to worry about. Chip behaved nicely. The whole herd came in together as they did this morning. At least Annie hasn’t taken off yet. I hope she doesn’t. Really not much happened today. I guess I shouldn’t waste a whole page on such a day but I’ve got a new diary book waiting to be used so I can be a little wasteful; We keep talking about moving and such, I wish we really would! One more month--that’s all. I said it and I’ll stick to it. I still could go to Grand Canyon College. I think I’d almost like to go away and live an entirely different life for awhile.
Not much to explain or clarify here. Annie and Chip were mules I have mentioned before. Jose was still a favored pen pal at this time; I don't recall this incident I mention--a minor disagrement had occurred I think. There were recurring problems with fences down and bunches of our animals straying far off from where they were supposed to be in the pasture area we rented out behind Tuzigoot. This was a constant and ongoing matter. The 'ranch hunt' and possible move notion went on and on, a total fable or fairytale really. I had realized it was not going to happen well before this but still wanted to believe, I guess. We lie to ourselves better than to anyone else.
A calm and rather dull day, really. Starting the third month since I finished school I was still trying to pretend that I could and would be going off to college . In a way, a pipe dream and a bad joke, all rolled into one. Somewhere deep inside I absolutely knew it was not going to happen. It was rather similar to my lengthy desire to have a social life with a 'real' boyfriend and start looking ahead to adult relationships. If I mentioned either around my parents, I got the old brush off that began when I was in my early to mid-teens! "Oh, it's much too soon for all that; wait and grow up." Yeah, right. Until I am 45?!?
I go back to what I finally realized early in working on my main memoir project--the full book one. I was really never supposed to grow up. Their plan, especially Dad's, was that I would remain a docile, adoring and genderless child 'forever', virtually a semi-human pet. In some ways I was to be the only one and Charlie Mike was often treated very badly, perhaps for simply being born and throwing a wrench into that progrram. The idea of my being an indepenent entity and eventually moving on to my own life was appalling to my father! Unbearable and a catastrophe he would not accept. Yes, that is warped and twisted and wrong but it is a truth that I have finally come to recognize. So college was the same way--they had been proud of my being valedictorian and getting some modest scholarships but it was "too soon." How could they permit me to go off and live elsewhere and no longer be right there, every day and every hour?
At this time and for the next four years, I believed what they wanted and were demanding to keep was my labor and all that I did to support the livestock "business" and other enterprises Dad pursued but that was really only a minor part of it. Like many people who are at least marginally unbalanced, Dad could be charming, persuasive and very convincing. With the enmeshed family and emotional incest at work, I was really terribly brainwashed and overwhelmed. I just wish I could have started to sever those clinging webs so much sooner. That I fnally did is almost a miracle but I did have help--besides my Guardian Angel in whom I absolutely believe, there were a few people who were there for me in subtle, often unseen but at times very positive, even critical ways. I am eternally thankful for them. I will introduce one before long when I get to a few entries from 1964 and 1965.
Pictures? I can think of very few so one or two to contrrast me on May 31 and now on August 1. It is almost hard to identify with this young woman in the white gown. Then the cowboy girl--Annie is on my left, a big rangy raw boned mule she was but a good one. She served me very well. And then Charlie Mike and me in the junked up yard. I would have been preparing to ride out to the pasture, no doubt. He often wore even raggedier and more pitiful clothes and shoes than I did. He is very bitter now and hates his father. After a few things he has told me that I did not know, I truly understand. Abuse of many kinds...I am sad. I wish I could have helped him more.
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