Oh, The Joys of Solitary Confinement

Writing yesterdays blog, I realized that as a child there were many things that I didn’t understand. Also, many of these ‘things’ shadowed me into adulthood. Reflecting on that ‘child’, I see that in many childhood ‘thinking’ instances I would find myself outside sitting on a huge rock which had a flat top and was in front of our house in a flower bed.
It actually became my ‘thinking place’...
I could sit forever on my rock and mull through the injustices of life, the hardship of being the ’oldest girl’, or the ’getting even’ with my older, smarter, adventuresome, brother, Dockie. Then I had the trials of my other siblings, Shryl, Aaron and Joyce to contend with and ‘stew over‘.
Being an avid reader with an overactive imagination, I could ’get even’ with some people I knew or could elevate others to pedestals of honor......all this done when banished to solitary confinement on my ’thinking rock’...

Years later, my husband and I and my Aunt Hattie went to our old home place for a visit.
Sure enough, my old friend, my rock was still there.
Somehow it seemed so much smaller but could still hold two adults side by side on its top.
I wanted to take my rock to my home in south Florida.
The rock was impossible to lift by three people....it would have taken a small crane to lift that rock.....and that was why it was still there.
It was too heavy to be moved easily.....
But it had served its purpose in my life.....It helped me to gather my thoughts, good and bad, and formulate creative ideas which would later be used in my adult life.
The thinking rock of my childhood.....was where I could be completely and happily........ME.