Tell All....

After some news I got today, I am seriously considering writing a tell all book about my life as I saw it while growing up in a small town. Maybe about how the drama goes around and around like a carousel that never stops. It's a place where gossip is currency with small town folk and the devastation that it causes is shear entertainment to the masses even though it is unkind. I hate to admit it, but I still can't help but perk up when I hear a juicy detail about some one's break up or a shot-gun wedding and all that those comments imply. All the while most in the community are bible thumpers and pretend to be above that particular brand of behaviour by way of judging others with discerning gazes and expressing their concerns by saying, "honey, I will pray for you and yours". Ugh, vomit. If it was sincere it would be acceptable to me; however, the majority of the time while you are pouring your heart out to someone for some much needed support they are thinking in the back of their mind about who would be the best to contact first for the most coveted shocked gasp.
People love each other where I come from, and don't get me wrong, I love my small town it just is like being on another planet sometimes. It has it own set of survival rules that aren't written down, just understood. Perhaps they are inherited or maybe they are developed over time but all the same, the rules always apply and are often morphed to meet certain people's needs. This always reminded me so much of when I was a kid and we all played games how my brother or cousins or basically who ever I was playing with would stand up and shout out a rule that no one was aware of. They, especially the boys, would try and make us all believe that the rule always was in existence. We knew better. Emphatically we would exclaim that they were making them up as they went along.
This was the same philosophy as small town lingo. Everyone knew everyone since birth and over the years the families, through marriages, became closer and closer to all being the same large family. Like every town, there is always a center family that has encouraged the grow of the community through financial stimulation and an Ora that I came to learn was called clout. Our town had one just like that. I wasn't related to them by blood, but every one of them knew exactly who I was by name. Now, we weren't the one's that were well off, but we were the family that was the center of this whole entire madness.
I thought growing up that my grandparents were rock stars in their on way. They owned a grocery store. And not just any grocery store, the ONLY one for miles around. The environment was hard to describe because to me if felt like home. I guess if I had to make someone understand that had never walked into the store it would have to be compared to Cheers. For me it was like exhaling and then relaxing. Everybody knows everyone else and even if you didn't just give it a second and you would know more about our little town than you ever even cared Growing up I could never quite grasp why everyone would come in and talk to my Nana about every little thing that came up. She would listen, smile, and often pray with them. She was a mother, a grandmother, a friend, and most of the time a counselor to anyone with any type of issue. To many this would be a terrible task, but to my Nana it was welcomed without judgement or irritation. Once she told me she felt it was her calling in a way. She got to witness to countless people about Christ just in the short amount of time it took to ring a customer up and bag the groceries. I often wondered why people thought it was okay to just blurt out some of their most intimate details to someone that was an outsider to their particular situation, but she seemed to enjoy the trust they placed in her hands and to this day seems to give people a calm feeling. Over the years I have come realize this was an amazing gift that she had.
All of these details are my precious memories and I will forever cherish them, but those aren't the one's that would sell. It's the drama that has been circling this cute little story that would sell books. Big says that if I told my story from childhood till now I could have plot and story for a daytime soap opera. As funny as that is, he does have a point. The craziness has become a part of my everyday life and I am rarely shocked anymore by other people's stories about their lives because I have heard just about everything. My parents had a fairy tale courtship and wedding which lead to almost 20 years together. Now all of these years may not have been the best, but they were happy for many of them. The community viewed them as the perfect couple with the two perfect children. This is a prime example of how you can't judge a book by it's cover. After the demise of the marriage and our life as we knew it, we picked up the pieces and tried to start over. This has been a roller coaster of a ride that still is going on. I laugh about the details every single day! My friends have laughed and cried with me over the years.
I created a terrific support system and that has been my family and friends whom have never once let me down. They have been there for me for every single step of the way and never acted like this was all trivial to them. No matter what was going on they seemed to pick me up and help me through it. Trust me, when you have all this stuff surrounding you there is nothing better than a great person to hug you and believe in you.
Maybe I will write it and maybe I won't but I promise if I ever did, it would be very entertaining for me to re-live all the events that have shaped me into a woman and share them with you guys. Until next time, better be sweet because you might end up in a chapter of "my professions of a child drama queen" growing up in my little world. LOL