Gaining Momentum

By Amy Elise Reichert

Gaining Momentum contains a variety of life stories about paths taken, paths abandoned and people's ability to persevere, change and gain new momentum. Each story is about life and its pursuits regardless of the bumps, bruises, and battering experienced along the way. Come along and taste the adventures awaiting as life unfolds!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Amy Elise Reichert
• Release date: Sep 6, 2022
• ISBN: 9798218070991

Book preview

cover-image, Amy Reichert - Complete Manuscript (31st August 2022)

AMY ELISE REICHERT

Copyright © 2022 Amy Elise Reichert.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

For permission requests, write to the author, addressed ‘Attention: Permissions Request’, at the address below.

Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Names, characters, and places are products of the author’s imagination.

Front cover image by Amy Elise Reichert.

Book design by Amy Elise Reichert.

First online ebook edition 2022.

Amy E Reichert

PO Box 699

Hudson, CO 80642

amyereichertwriting.wordpress.com© Amy Elise Reichert Additional Titles by Amy Elise Reichert

Two Pairs of Six Inch Heels & One Comfortable Shoe

Gaining Momentum

Changing Crossings is dedicated to my devoted friend, partner and spouse – Robin Bowersock. All cats and horses referenced are real and are as spoiled as they sound.

CHAPTER 1

 Group 3 Freeform 4 Freeform 5 Freeform 6 Freeform 7

In most autobiographies, you're born in a certain place. You live around here and there and go through the basics of birth, adolescence, partnership, career, and death. My life pretty much follows these traditional lines. For the most part, I've lived through each one of these cycles. Yes, that's right – lived through. I've been given life and become a human being.

I've gone through every cycle but death. I've continued to live, amending, re-working, and changing. Sometimes I've made the same exact mistakes over and over again. I go on, repeating life at the busiest intersections, the crossroads, and each time choosing another path or the same one - trying to come to the end of my story. In this respect, my life appears unique, or at least I’ve not met anyone yet willing to admit they’ve been through it all before.

I was born only once at St. Joseph's Hospital at around 1:20 pm on November 29th, 1969. However, even though I've been a child only once — I've been 49-59 multiple times spanning two centuries. Same geographic place and time, but distinctly different lives. I don’t travel through time, I remain in the same general time frame, or at least I have so far. I need to give you a bit more boring background about my childhood so you can understand where I branched away from reality. The point where I started living my life over and again, choosing different paths.

My father was a businessman, always caught up in making more money than anyone else. I have three older sisters. We rarely see our father unless you count Sunday afternoon when he's asleep in his chair in front of the TV. Every so often, if his sisters were coming to visit that Sunday, he'd be up early mowing the grass or working on something out in the yard until they'd arrived and had food ready to eat. He was a busy man, work, work, and more work. He did always take care of us financially, at least while he was alive.

My mother was young with four small children and two close friends. I remember being around the age of six, and she'd give us each dust rags, and we'd dust all the furniture in the low spots where it was hard to reach. When I was done, I'd ditch the dust rag by the dining room table after playing my favorite music and singing along — self-karaoke. My all-time favorite was ‘Hey Lamppost’ by Simon & Garfunkel or any song on their albums that my mother constantly played morning to night.

You know I still half-remember that song Hey lamppost what you knowin', got to keep those flowers growin', ain't ya got no rhymes for me, doot and doo dah, feeling' groovy… or something along those lines. My mother taped me often, a singer I was never to be, but I loved to sing. It gave me such a feeling of peace and joy. My mother was always trying to get me to come out from under the table and go play with other kids or at least my older sisters. What she didn't understand is I felt safe there. I haven't felt safe since I came out from under that table. When she'd finally coaxed me out, she gave us all lunch, water, and snacks and locked us outside for an hour or two of peace and quiet. She'd turn up the stereo so loud the house vibrated.

I don't know when it first happened, but my mother was terminally sad. She never smiled much and was frequently angry and frustrated. Many times I'd even catch her crying, and she'd quickly shoo me away. I knew there was something wrong in that house. It made her sad and tense, and it only got sadder and tenser over the years. The only way I escaped it was to leave the house or spend as much time away from it as possible. My mother, you see, followed the rules. She left her college career to get married and have children in the 1950s era of the housewife. I think she regretted that decision after the first five years. It was always difficult for me to stand there, staring at her crying, knowing even in my childhood what made her cry. It forever hurt me to realize she was so unhappy, so terminally sad.

My parents were married thirty-seven years before she finally divorced him. The odd thing was that she really didn’t want to, despite his long-time girlfriend and the drinking and violent or odd behavior. My mother left because my father finally lost the house. She literally lost everything and didn’t know it was coming. My mother moved in with