Do you remember any special feelings you had as a child? (fears, fantasies, spiritual experiences, etc.)
Hmm, this seemed like a loaded question to me. There are so many different paths I could go down. I guess first thing that comes to mind is experiences that my children have not been able to experience at this time. We live on a street but I grew up in a neighborhood. And the majority of that neighborhood was LDS. It was a neighborhood filled with young families. As a child we were able to spend time playing with kids all the time. I remember spending hours in our sandbox and swing set with other kids. Our swing set was well used and loved. I remember spending hours riding my bike around the neighborhood and feeling completely safe even when it was dark outside. I could walk around the neighborhood and name most of families that lived there. I honestly can't even put a number on the number of kids that were in my grade level.
I do know that there had to be at least a dozen girls that were my exact age that I went to church with. I can think back to growing up in the Syracuse 8th ward and being close to my young women friends. I've lost touch with many of them now, but fortunately I still keep in touch with one friend and visit when we go to Utah. I can remember that for me and many others, we loved spending time doing things with each other at young women's activities. And going camping we loved going camping as a ward and didn't like going as a stake, on the rare instances that we were split up, we very much despised that.
Another experience that I grew up with was living very close to all my relatives. With the exception of 2 Uncles. But I loved spending my weekends with my grandparents and aunts and uncles. I recall, we had many sleep-overs at both sets of grandparents. Me and my brothers would always ask to sleep over. We spent many nights sleeping in my grandpa's camper and hearing train whistles go by all night. Or at my other grandma's house waiting in anticipation for the next day to come so we could spend all day in the pool. And we did-and much credit goes to grandma for sitting next to that pool for hours on end. We had countless BBQ's Sunday dinners, and holiday dinners at their houses.
I had a really great childhood. It was filled with lots of family, friends and church members. I had (have) really great parents that provided many wonderful experiences for my as a child. This is just how I'm able to summarize my memories of my childhood. Sometimes it's hard for me to accept that my children are really OK even though they are not experiences that same kind of childhood I had. For me their childhood is completely opposite of mine. I lived in a neighborhood, they live on a street with no kids around. I had many, many friends my age in my ward; they have a small group of kids their ages in the ward. I lived by all my family, they live by no family. Thus since it's on the opposite spectrum of my "great" childhood, their childhood has to be "bad." That's how my thinking is, so it's a battle I fight to correct that thinking. We provide well for them. They do have friends. They enjoy their church classes. They love their visits to Utah and they love having visitors come here. They get so excited to get a package from their grandma and grandpa. In the end, they'll never experience what I did, but that doesn't mean that they won't turn out "normal." I hope: )
