For most of my life, if you asked, I would tell you I had a wonderful childhood. And I did. But that’s not the entire story.

Although I knew the entire story, unknown to me, I was fragmented, and the pieces were scattered and disconnected.

I had a wonderful childhood. I lived on a block filled with children I’d play with every day, either outside in pleasant weather or in my house on those rare rainy L.A. days. I was an outstanding student and popular with both students and teachers. I sang in the glee club and was the first student allowed to handle money in the cafeteria.

My parents, while not wealthy, provided a lifestyle that gave me beautiful clothes and day camp each summer. There was nothing I wanted that I couldn’t have, but my needs were small, and I rarely asked.

Life was good, and I was happy.

And then my father died. And I was no longer happy or popular or a good student.

So that was my story if you asked: I had a wonderful childhood, and then my father died, and everything changed.

But that was only part of the truth. I had another childhood with a much different story and I was not happy. In that childhood, I was raped many times, starting at age six, by my older half-brother. Yes, I know people call it sexual molestation—I used to, too—but now I refuse to tamp down the truth with weak words. He also raped my best friend. She holds some memories of what he did to me that I don’t recall. Her recollections don’t hurt me. They’re just information to add to the story.

In my unhappy childhood, my father was unpredictable and yelled. I never knew a rule until I broke it, which made moving through my life precarious because I had no useful map. Also, in this unhappy childhood, my older half-brother tortured and hit me.

And did I mention my parents drank a lot?

But my dad loved me, and I could curl into his arms for comfort. Of course, the comfort was never about my older half-brother, because he threatened if I ever told he’d hurt me worse the next time our parents weren’t home. And I believed him. But my dad loved me, and starting a few months before he died, once a week, he and I would sit on his boat and talk, and I loved him and knew he loved me.

As I said, I was fragmented, so if you asked, I’d tell you I had a happy childhood.

But little girl me knew the hidden truth because there were days I’d cry “for no reason,” as my parents said. And they nicknamed me Puddles. Other days, I wouldn’t smile, so they added Smiley to my list of names. I believed them when they said I cried for no reason. If they’d asked why, I couldn’t have told them.

And then my dad died, and the unsteady house that was me and the home where I lived collapsed. My joyful mother disappeared into scotch and morphed into a belligerent, defensive, resentful woman, widowed twice now by the age of 47. She also became a businesswoman and an insurance underwriter who kept us in our home and kept me well-dressed and physically cared for.

School became another nightmare. Friends dropped me within weeks of my dad’s death, declaring I was “too depressed.” They continued to bully me throughout junior high. Teachers no longer liked me and treated me as though I’d been branded with a huge “D” on my chest, and their fear that death was contagious translated into dislike instead of compassion for the sullen, sad, broken child I’d become. I’d once loved school and learning, and now I hated it.

Home was worse. My older half-brother had morphed into my living nightmare. Although he’d always hurt me, what he did before was muted compared to the pain he now inflicted. And it wasn’t just the physical blows that hurt, it was the verbal abuse when all I wanted was to find some portion where loved resided to hold me. But his arms were only good for holding me down and doing something painful or disgusting, like forcing my head into his smelly armpits.

And yet, life wasn’t all bad. By high school, I’d met new friends, and we’d go out and we’d laugh and have fun, and my time with them became my bigger reality. They never knew about my older half-brother.

Fragmented. Disjointed. I lived two distinct lives.

So, why do I write about this today? Because I spent the past week listening to experts in trauma, and as I listened, old memories visited, and I could see, like a jigsaw puzzle laid before me ready to be solved, how I’d dissociated in order to survive. None of the memories that arrived this week were new, but the experts added nuance and opened new pathways to viewing and understanding what I already thought I fully knew.

You see, this is the truth of life: we think we know, we think we understand, and then we live and learn more, and the tapestry of who we are deepens.

And so, at 73, I am once again reminded how little I know for sure. I kind of miss teenage me who knew so much with great certainty. But then again, I don’t miss her at all because living with wonder adds flexibility and understanding.

I like that I no longer know anything for sure because moving through moments this way allows my life to continue opening to possibility.

As to what’s now possible for me, I don’t know, but I look forward to finding out what the next thing I learn and do will be.

Now, I’d like to know about you. What is your story? What have you learned? What are you learning? What is your adventure called life?