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I didn't expect to be so saddened
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I found a bunch of old VHS tapes in my dad's things. From the labels on them I recognzed they were old home movies that my dad had filmed when I was a very small kid. I don't even own a VHS player anymore so I sen them to a place that could convert them to digital format so I could watch them online. When I got the digitized versions sent to me I was keen to watch them, see the old memories brought to life. I wasn't exxpectng the sadness they'd make me feel.The oldest ones were filmed when I was about 2 - 3 years old, when my parents were still together. Seeing them as a happy couple, together, in the same house, made me so sad because I know that in very few years after these videos were filmed is when their marital problems started, the arguments, the mean spirited comments, the eventual divorce.Also the house itself, this was the house that they ended up losing around the time of the divorce, my dad's business started to go bad and the house got foreclosed on. My dad loved that house. It was on acreage and it was supposed to be his heaven on earh. It represented the fruits of his hard work and sanctuary from the real world after rising above his sad and abusive childhood.In the videos I am running around, playing in the acreage with the pets we had, blissfully unaware that it would soon come to an end and we would be moving into squalor. The pets that we had to give away or that vanished or died, they were alive and walking around in the videos, being petted by me. Seeing myself so young and innocent, enjoying playing with toys and genuinly enjoying being around both of my parents, who I adored at the time, it made me feel feel such sadness and depression to realize these years are well and truly gone and can never come back or be re-lived.Some of the later videos were filmed right at the time my parents were going through the divorce, so I get to hear my dad talking to his brothers, telling them about the arguments or occassionally he is just filming me playing and when I am out of earshot he would make comments to himself about his divorce was going to be finalized soon and he expected it to be the happiest day of his life. He would make disparaging remarks about my mother, talk about how he believed she had been out getting railed by an affair partner and would talk about the house was being foreclosed upon and about how he was losing everything. Of course, I was completely oblivious, just a small kid, concerned with school friends, toys, etc, no concept of the real world.I wished they could have stayed together and loved one another.I wish I could go back in time.
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betrayed
cookywacky
awake
bored
calm
anxious
accomplished