Part 1 – Just the beginning
I am a 63-year-old mother of two grown children, married since 1993. My son is 31, and my daughter is 28. My life has not been perfect. I don’t know whose life has been. My name is Vicki Travis Stamml, and I will share my stories of rising above difficulties in life.
My mom passed away in April 1999, and my dad in November 2015. As much as I loved my parents, I have so many memories of a dysfunctional childhood. Memories of my parents fighting, memories of hurt, anger, screaming, and crying. Love and hate balance on a very thin line; intertwined where you sometimes can’t tell the difference. I can look back at it now in retrospect and see how far I’ve come, but as a child, I was deep in a life of love and hate; it seemed more hate than love. My parents loved each other, but some people can communicate without attacking and hurting each other, and some cannot. My parents could not, which affected me more than I knew. I have done a lot of personal introspection, personal development, and personal therapy over the years that have helped me learn, grow and change for the better.
The best years of my childhood that I recall were from kindergarten to grade 6, when I lived in one place the longest and had the most fun as a child. The best opportunity of my childhood to experience a world outside of my parents’ home occurred in my teens when I met a former public school friend who was attending the same high school. I recognized her and started hanging out with her, going to movies and roller skating as a teen and to bars/dancing when we were legally allowed to drink. I also learned to drive, which gave me more freedom. My life took a bigger turn when I moved out on my own at the age of 24. Freedom and time to breathe, think, grow, learn, and live.
