Piecing together the family secrets

I'm eye-rolling while typing this, but over Christmas break I got to that point in self-work where it was time to delve into my childhood.

Not my fav! But frankly, my therapist could tell me to jump off a bridge and I'd consider it. The problem: my childhood was missing chunks. It felt like I was in some dusty community center trying to put together a janky old 500 piece puzzle that was half missing.

Thanks to COVID weirdness, it was just my two younger sisters and I for Xmas. I laid out my messy, blurry, half-there childhood memories and asked them to help fill in the blanks.

Turns out, all of us had access to different sections of the same puzzle, and as each of us put down our pieces, another sister would gasp and say, "yes, that explains this!" and all of a sudden we'd see a puppy pop up in the corner of the puzzle, or a laughing woman in the left corner, and little by little, a clear picture began to form.

There were some dark scenes in the puzzle too, and it was so nice to uncover and examine them in the safe company of my sisters. My Dad often says, 'It's never too late to have a happy childhood,' and I think he's on to something. There may be some fucked up family secrets and trauma in the midst, but the three of us, sharing our grandparents' timeshare and laughing for 10 days over Christmas break, sure seemed like something happy and new.