My Nanny

When I was a little girl I had a nanny. I was probably about 4 or 5 years old and she was in her 20s. I thought she was awesome. She always had different colors in her hair, whether it be 2 toned blonde and brown, blue, or green. Her nose was pierced, she was tattooed, and she had a little blue dot above her upper lip that reminded me of a punk-rock Marilyn Monroe.

She drove a beater of a car and it didn't even have a CD player, just a tape deck. Her favorite bands were The Smashing Pumpkins, Pearl Jam, and The Offspring. She would put on songs and we would jam in her car while she took me places. There was one song, I can't remember which, that I fell in love with. I would make her play it on repeat every time we were in the car.

Once she took me to the Humane Society to look at dogs. There was a 3 year old black lab that was just brought in and we fell in love with it. My nanny took that dog home that day and named it Roo. It was adorable and I remember playing with it in my backyard in the mud.

As I grew up and no longer needed a Nanny, Sue fell out of my life. I saw her a couple more times growing up, maybe when I was 12 or 13, maybe 14. She was married with two adorable twins that had autism. She was still tattooed but her hair was one color and she was an adult.

As a kid I never looked at Sue like a "bad-girl". She wasn't "punk-rock" to me or "wild". I had no labels for her except that she was my nanny and my friend.

What makes me think of all this is the fact that time and time again I find myself attracted to the stereotype of these kind of people. Mostly I find myself attracted to the 'bad-boy'. I wonder if my relationship and memories of Sue subconsciously cater to my attraction to this type of person. I wonder how strong my idea of having fun and feeling safe with Sue is attributed to others in the same schema.

I wonder how much influence childhood relationships have on the relationships you make as an adult.