My first real memory of being happy was swinging on the porch at my Nana's. I would swing for hours and sing "It's a hard knock life" from the movie Annie, because I was obsessed when I was little and convinced I was secretly Little Orphan Annie in a past life. My Nana would wash the dishes from the kitchen and listen to me sing, and once I was finished she would clap and cheer. I would run away, knobby kneed and shy but secretly deep down I loved that feeling. I remember kneading the left over pie crust into little dough balls, baking them on a cookie sheet next to the pie my Nana was baking. When they were finished we would dust them with powdered sugar while I listened to her talk on the phone. Before I would leave she would always make sure I had a pretty new ribbon to put in my hair for school the next day. I remember the tea set, my Poppy always leaving peanut shells on the floor, him pointing out the different birds as they flew down from the Odessa sky to snack on the peanut butter bird feeder we had hanging from a tree. Watching a hummingbird flap it's wings and asking if I could reach out and touch them. The smell of their house during the changing seasons. Honeysuckles and ham in the summer, cinnamon sticks and the wood stove burning in the winter. She bought me my first cassette tape TLC's Crazy Sexy Cool and I listened to it on the sun porch floor for hours that afternoon. I'll never understand why people who weren't even my blood grandparents could have possibly loved me so much, when both sets of my blood grandparents never even knew what I looked like until years later.
No matter how lonely I feel I always try to think about that situation and remember that there is always someone willing to love you. It'll always be ok.
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