Knock, Knock-Who's There

I think I’ve laid something to rest. I’ve outgrown my misspent youth, matured, and made something good of this life. I made mistakes, survived embarrassments, and moved on. I don’t look back too much on the things I cannot change, unless it’s to write about them after I’ve posthumously laid them to rest. But darn it, those annoying reminders of my past keep resurrecting and hovering about.

Nothing Stays Buried

I understand I can’t wipe them away or forget that I have serious skeletons buried along the way. Some of them deserved burial, and maybe incineration as well. The bodies stay buried. But some refuse to stay 6 feet under. It’s not that they come up every now and then; it’s the surprise that never stops giving. The shocker is how and who dredges them back up. I am beginning to believe family members are all born with shovels in their back pockets and uncanny timing.

I don’t like or enjoy digging up thoughts and memories of hurtful things. I don’t care much for living in the past either, and prefer to let things lie once I have laid them down. So why does my sibling never fail to remind me of the incredible crap of my youth?

Anything from bad decisions to bad marriages seems to be churning in a cauldron that my sister or other family members love to stir. I jumped out of those fires, singed and scarred, and I carry them to this day. No one needs to remind me of what caused those wounds and scars. It’s as if I am not permitted to change. I have changed. I am no longer the woman I was, and I don’t even know her anymore.

Buried and Gone

I put out my dumpster fire long ago. I survived a bad marriage and endured the sacrifice of my dreams so as not to overshadow someone else’s ego. I left my passions and loves behind for more years than I care to remember.

I moved on from people, setting some aside to protect my future, which was stalling because of their influence. I don’t want that back, and I believe sometimes you have to let people go if you intend to make your life better. I did it, and I won’t apologize for it.

Cutting Out What’s Toxic

Some people in my life were toxic, so I left and moved far enough away that I no longer had to see them in person. I no longer had to risk having those people in my day-to-day life, even though they would always be part of who I am. If the phone rang, I didn’t have to answer it. And I often didn’t. Who wants or needs constant negativity droning on in every moment of their life?

My friends changed. My lifestyle changed, and so did all my relationships. It had to be an intentional decision on my part. No one else was going to live my life, good or bad. And I made good. I learned from my mistakes. No, not all of them; I am still in the process, but I don’t keep harping on my screw-ups. I have family for that.

Ah yes, every now and then there is a knock on my door when I am not expecting anyone or anything. But the knock comes, and I open the door. On the other side of my steel-reinforced door lies my past, waiting to greet me like a long-lost lover.

Accusations

In most cases, my sister or my brother-in-law drives the forgotten or buried to the surface for a visit. Sometimes it’s my nephew who brings me the phantoms. These unwelcome flashbacks can even come from a parent who abandoned me as a babe.

I love it when I can relive the horrible choice I made for my first husband. I looked back many times and wondered what I was thinking. The answer was that I wasn’t. I was moving through life in a haze. Then I started thinking, and I moved on. Maybe I left my family back there because they don’t seem to know I am gone from those places, and they apparently never left them. Maybe my shadow lingers there even if my life no longer does.

My favorite kind of acid reflux is being blamed for my nephew’s horrible eating habits or for the doctor’s visit they had that one particular night after I babysat.

He must have been 1 or 2, and they asked me to stay with him. I remember he was on jarred baby food and formula, and he was also eating finger foods. My sister left me his jarred dinner for the day, a little can of sweet peas, and a little can of sliced black olives. I was told these were his favorites and that I was supposed to make sure he ate something. Ok, no worries.

Oh, but there were worries. My only nephew was already a very picky eater. When he didn’t like something, we never introduced it again. You know what happens in that scenario. When he wanted sweets, he just pushed away the savory foods like vegetables, and that’s all she wrote. That was the pattern for the rest of his life.

The Violinist

That night, since I was green and had never had a child, the child was the master of the adult. He played me like a Stradivarius in the hands of Itzak Perlman.

I opened his jar, and he turned his head. I tried again. He shook his head and whined. I made like an airplane, but apparently he preferred a Gulfstream to my Boeing 737; that was a no-go. I made like a choo-choo, but there, too, he preferred the E-unit diesels over my 2–6–0 Mogul steam train, so that brought the train to a full stop. Derailment. I tried to pretend I was going to eat it, but he was smarter than I was and knew I wasn’t about to put that in my mouth, judging by his smirk.

Tia (what he called me) moved on to the canned peas. Those are sweet and a so-so vegetable, so I gave it a shot. At least he would get some greens, even if you can only consider them that based on color alone. Here, too, he refused me with the obstinacy of a diabetic being handed an ice cream. He wasn’t having it.

Again I brought out my arsenal of vehicles, as the Titanic was raised to sail again and toot its long horn. Nope. The Apollo missions had a new mission, but apparently a tiny little alien in a high chair was about to slam that sucker against an asteroid, killing everyone on board. Another no.

I may have tried, unconvincingly, to crash cars, motorcycles, and some made-up vehicles, but toddlers are too smart, and I fooled no one but myself, thinking I could pull the wool over this sage adversary’s eyes. The mini human bested me. So I pulled out the nuclear option. Canned black olives, it was.

Victorious?

I opened them, drained the water, and set a couple of pieces of the offering to the gods in front of him. He ate them with gusto, with the voracity of a starving man. I puffed out my chest.

“I am super Tia, conqueror of tiny stubborn beings.”

I went home after my sister and her husband returned, following my accounting of the battle of wills.

The next morning, all hell broke loose on me because my nephew chose that day to get sick and throw up all over the place. The doctor put him on antibiotics and everything because he was sick. Somehow, that sickness was the fault of the aunt who let him eat the only thing he didn’t refuse to eat.

I was blamed either because he ate too many or because I fed him the olives in the first place. Who knows. The idea that you don’t give a child antibiotics because he overate sliced black olives wasn’t even considered. I was a bad aunt.

No Harm No Foul

My nephew is in his thirties now and has two lovely little girls, and this story comes up a lot. Still. I will never live it down, even though I know it wasn’t the reason he puked all over them. Every time there’s a knock at the door, I open it.

Door knocks come often. They always will, I think. Whether it’s reminders from close family that you were once a failure at the game of life, or an estranged parent experiencing a sudden burst of nostalgia and interest in a child she abandoned and never got to know, the door knocks come. I don’t think you can avoid them. But you can refuse to open the door. I have done that.

Ha! Challenge Accepted

I bought a Ring. Now I can see who is knocking and just watch them stand there. I watch until they walk away. When they sneak up behind me through the back door, I call them out. I am not that person anymore, and I won’t let anyone put me back where I came from. Either move on and come with me, or risk being left behind to wallow in your recriminations without an audience.

(Published by Writer Life on Medium, 2026)

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