wed 03 sep 2008 07:40:34 — witte de withstraat
carol ann
before i was born, my mom had a baby girl who died at birth. her name was carol ann. that's sad. what's also sad is that i only found this out yesterday. nobody ever told me about this in all my fifty years.
it gives me pause. if carol ann had lived to be their fourth child, would my parents have really wanted a fifth one? in a way it feels as if poor carol ann had to die if i was gonna be born.
but not to be so mystical: the fact of losing a child before me says a lot about why my mother treated me so special. it may explain my egotism: if you're raised to believe you're a boy wonder, you start acting like one, and almost even become one. if you're rarely told you can't do that, then you think you can, and you keep doing it until you can. i grew up into someone who could write, draw, paint, compose music and make films, all because nobody ever told me i couldn't.
the down side is that i took my abilities for granted, and never struggled to become great at anything. i remember thinking about my music, there's always more where that came from. and it's true, there is.