Returning to the Scene of the Crime

"If you think you're enlightened go spend a week with your family." Ram Dass

Jun 26, 2024

Photo 244451590 © Yuri Arcurs | Dreamstime.com

Anyone that doesn’t believe in time travel has never gone to visit their parents in their childhood home.

My Dad turns 80 this week so I am packing to go to a family birthday party in Philadelphia.

I also turned 54 last week, so how is it that as I’m packing my suitcase with my bikini, I suddenly revert into a shame filled teenager that knows my mother will be looking at me with “the look.”

“Slut.”

Yes, she called me that once. Yes, growing up there were no skirts above the knee or plunging necklines and definitely no 2-piece bathing suits.

But come on now - I’m fifty freaking four. I haven’t lived at home in 36 years but there it is - the pit in my stomach that is already steeling myself for the looks of simpering disapproval.

You see we don’t actually attack each other in our family. There won’t be any explicit confrontation. We’re more of a “' ‘Nam style you never know when Charlie is going to ambush you” kind of family. You better sleep with one eye open because you never know when the attack is going to come.

I’m sure it’ll be fine. Really it will be.

I was told once that fine stands for Freaking out, Insecure, Neurotic and Emotional.

Yup, it’ll definitely be fine.

What I’m more curious about is what’s going on inside of me.

I wear a bikini all the time. Heck, I’ve gone topless in certain environments. I am not ashamed of my body or the human body for that matter.

It apparently doesn’t matter. Somehow going back to my childhood home immediately transports me back to a time and place inside of me that I thought I had moved past.

I can intellectually argue with the silliness of this all I want, but the shame monster has apparently been lurking under my childhood bed all these years just waiting for me to come home.

Time travel is real, and apparently 13-year-old Maureen is about to go on a trip to Philadelphia.

Wish me luck.