Growing up with eccentric madly in love artist parents was something I didn't realize was "special" as it was just my experience. I always felt we were the rebel rousers of my mother's side of the family. It was obvious to me in comparison to my other cousins that my folks did things differently and that they got slack for that. It became more obvious when my folks decided to move to the British Virgin Islands at age 11years old. It was a place we had vacationed a few years back but now it was going to become my home.
My much older brother was off to art school in California that year so as it happened I also became the only child on this somewhat impulse adventure with my folks. My dad took the leap a year ahead of my mom I so I could finish sixth grade and so my mom could pack up my childhood home and put it on the market. I used to try to scare of potential buyers by stomping on the floor and remarking that there spot is where the water damage is.. or I would just opt for running into the bathroom while pounding on the door screaming while hysterically crying. The only reason that realtor sold that glorious house was because of it's mystical charm as I am certain I did all I could to keep it off the RMLS sold pages.
When we got to Tortola I immediately felt they had made a HUGE mistake. The things of comfort I had grown accustomed to in Miami Beach such as my grandparents on both sides living within distance to us, my cousins and aunt and uncle who lived around the corner from us, my hive of friends I had since day one at elementary school were absent but so were some “essential items” such as: air conditioning, traffic lights, cable tv, grocery stores with items I recognized, roads where two cars could fit around a bend. There was so much adapting to do at first that it felt like a full time job.
This also included my parents socio economical status taking a huge dip. When we left Miami Beach we had a beautiful 4 bedroom 5 bathroom sprawling art deco home with a pool and outdoor courtyard fountain. Now we lived in a 2 bedroom 1 bathroom apartment called Slaney Hill Apartments. When we left Miami Beach my father had a shiny Mercedes and a Harley Davidson motorcycle while my mother drove a dark blue elegant BMW. Now they had one half beaten down used and dusty Pathfinder between them. I felt much less cushioning on all sides of me.
When school began it didn't get much better. Instead of going to the public school I went to the "private school" as I was labeled now a "non belonger", Tortola's version of illegal alien. I recall the title stung and looking back on this it was an important experience to be a minority group as I had been a very privileged white Jew from Miami Beach where there were a splattering of diverse people but also where there were a lot of other people just like myself. My bubble was popped.
The "private school" had about 30 kids in it from first to twelth grades and we were housed in a two room shack that Ms. Parsons owned that was carved into the side of a hill. When I first arrived we did not have running water yet. I was the sole 7th grader and all of my friends were much older than me and I grew up fast on this little island. I remember Jenny Coish who was 16 at he time teaching me how to become anorexic (you sleep as late as you can go to bed as early as you can and eat very little in between). Samantha also 16 taught me how to chain smoke Marlboro Lights( you just light the new cigarette with the old cigarette). Sally long and lean and also 16 taught me about being appealing to men (first off it you are not long and lean dress like you still are and then giggle a lot and do what you think they want you to do...). And the legal drinking age was if your height reached the bar it seemed..It was a lot to take in.
By the time I was half through my 7th grade my parents caught wind of what I was really studying and decided to send me back to Miami Beach to live with my aunt uncle and cousins who still owned their home around the block from my since sold childhood abode. This was most painful as I was living with a family that I loved but still also feeling like a non belonger. I was a block away from my only known true home but now another family was actually living in it calling it their home. Instead I lived in the back room of my aunts and uncles house and continued my self study in anorexia and took more lessons which I will just label Illegal Substances. My childhood had officially ended in Tortola.
The years that followed were equally as confusing as I made a few more moves here and there with my mom and then eventually went to boarding school against my will just before I turned 14.
I had loving people in my life and am so thankful for that as I know without that my story would have been very different. And it is my story and even though at the time I didn't get to create the plot lines and and scene changes now I do. And even though I have attachment issues which stemmed from this time in my life I also have the power to keep healing and growing. I am finally understanding the term “earned secure attachment” which I think is the ultimate chapter in adult chapter. As my very wise and grounded partner simply reminds me.. “There is no end to healing.”
