A Trip Down Memory Lane

When I was younger I dressed up a lot. We had a dressing-up-trunk, which was my great-grandfather's trunk from when he was at sea, and it was kept in my room. It was green and had my great-grandfather's name and address on the lid in black. The handles were made of thick rope. The lid-hinges were rusted or broken through so that you had to be careful opening the trunk (I don't know whether this has always been the case or if it happened when I was older). It was filled with old clothes that used to belong to my parents and grandparents. I loved that trunk. I still love it now.
Before I went to school, my brother, who's 3 years older than me, went to a primary school which had occasional parties (in my memory it was every Friday night, but I'm sure that can't be right) where everyone was dressed up. Younger brothers and sisters were also invited, as were parents. We have some pictures from the different dress-up parties, and I think most of what I remember is mixed up with looking at those pictures.
One night my brother was going as some sort of Aladdin-type character, with a turban and a drawn-on moustache and beard, and I was going as a posh lady (I had a shiny dress, a necklace and glasses). I think my brother's make-up made me want to have some as well, and so I asked my mother for a moustache and beard just like his. Thus, The Posh Lady With Moustache And Beard was born.
A few years later, when I was going to the same school and had friends of my own, I went as a Polar Bear. I wore all white and my mother made a cap with ears and painted my face. I was wearing white gloves, and to complete the performance, I clapped in my hands a lot. I don't know why, but somehow I had taken up the idea that that's what Polar Bears do, so it's what I did. In one of the pictures of that night, my hands are just a big blur.
My friend was dressed up as a ghost with a big sheet over her head and I think my brother was dressed up as Jim Button (but I am not sure). Another picture, of a different night, shows one of my brother's friends dressed up as a washing machine. It looks really good, although I think he may have gotten a bit fed up being in a box all evening.

As I grew older, the trunk moved with me to different houses, but after a while it stopped being a dressing-up trunk. I kept old papers and trinkets in there because I am a hoarder but I don't want my room to look too cluttered. I think the trunk is in my mother's attic now, and I kinda wish I had it here. It would be a good place to keep memories in, and I kind of miss it being part of my life. Is it strange to miss a trunk? Part of it, I know, is the fact that I miss being young like that, secure in my parent's love, and still in love with school and learning. Part of it is me wanting my own children one day (although I am still not sure about that), and wanting to give them a great childhood which isn't broken up by a divorce.
I find it hard to think of my childhood without thinking of it as two separate periods. There was the 'happy' time before the divorce, when I had a good time with my older brother and dressed up and went to a school I enjoyed. Then there's the 'unhappy' time, after the divorce, when no one understood me or tried to, and I felt so alone I wanted to stop existing. These two periods are a construct of my past which I know to be false to a certain extent, but it is also partly true. What I want is not to idealise or dismiss any part of my childhood, and to understand how two people who gave me such happy times could also be the ones to break my heart.
It was hard for me to realise I don't trust my parents, nor their love for me, but I am also finally realising that I need to make my own life exactly that: my own life. My parents had control over me for a long time, but I am an adult now, I can take care of myself, and I need to stop looking over my shoulder at them at every step I take. I need my parents, because I will never be a person that can look at her family and say 'I don't need any of them', but I don't need them to make my decisions any more.
I don't have to make myself from my my parents' old clothes: I can create my own me. So that's what I'm going to do.