Mind wandering

let me stage this thought process for you: I'm taking a shit and I get up and wash my hands, and look in the mirror. For some strange, and purely bizarre reason I expected to see a 12 year old me in the mirror and was fully disappointed when I saw the 22 year old staring back. Not that I'm disappointed in myself, but I was really looking forward to being 12 for that instant.

When I was 12, My mom decided to leave my dad. She packed up my 3 brothers and I and we went down to Indianapolis for the family reunion. Now its not that my father wasn't welcomed, he just didnt come. We came back and stayed with my uncle instead of going back home. My older brother and I were locked in his house on Blackstone. He knew what was going on and assumed I did as well. I didn't. I knew we weren't at home and all I wanted to do was go and lay in my bed. We had my uncle's sega genesis and Madden 97, which I completely sucked at playing, at our disposal. My mother would go to work and my uncle would do the same. This happened for 3 days until we packed up her burgundy Cutlass Supreme and drove, again, not to the place I knew as home.
We ended up in Pontiac, Michigan in a place I'd never been to, and never heard of until then. It was a domestic abuse center for women called Haven. I had no clue as to why I was here or when I'd be able to go home. It was foreign, and I was frightened. I hadn't seen my father in a week and I just wanted to know when I'd be able to go home. School was starting back and all of my clothes were there, my notebooks full of poetry, short stories, and random thoughts, and secret stuff I didn't want my parents to know about was hidden all around that house.
Haven was hell. I was 12 so there wasnt much I could do. I had a curfew, I had to go to certain classes and seminars with children who also couldn't grasp what was happening. I didn't fully have a hold on what was happening because, to be honest, I wasn't made aware of the situation at hand. The other children didn't know what was happening and couldn't understand why, and I pitied them. I just wanted to go outside and play on the wood chips.
There's not much I remember about being in Haven. I remember helping a woman with her bags and she gave me a food stamp instead of a dollar. That was the first time I saw a food stamp. It was white and brown, and I had no clue how to react to this act of generosity.
I also remember being on the back porch watching Jerry springer while this one woman did this girls hair. She braided ferociously with a cigarette in her hand. Bad move, the girls hair caught on fire. I laughed and ran down the hallway to tell my brother, who would surely get a kick out of it.
I remember one boy who was the only child more afraid than I. His name is Julian. He wore glasses and was very short, and was a year younger than I. He hated his name, and was very reclusive. He was my friend in that circus.
I remember his sister, who was 2 years older than I. I thought she was the cutest girl in the world. I was very shy at the time, and I avoided her at all costs.
I remember waking up and having to pee, and walking dead into a stall where a woman was peeing with the door open. That was funny.
Lastly I remember two more things: One was my mother weeping, wondering what we were going to do after the 30 days was up. She was searching desperately for a place to live, and wondered if she'd be able to find one. Ive never felt so helpless in my life.
The other thing was when Fox 2 news came to Haven. They did a report on the woman across the hall, Madonna. She was a very large black woman who reminded me of my mother, both in size and looks, and in raw gumption and determination. She had been beaten and left for dead by her spouse. I remember she was interviewed and we all watched it from another room on the 11 oclock news. Her face and voice had been changed, but her story was resounding. After hearing madonnas story, the severity of the situation hit me with tremendous force..