Runaway

For some strange reason, I started thinking about John again. I don't quite remember what the thought patterns were to lead me to a few memories....

When I was a wee lass - about three or four, I think - I hid underneath a bed at my grandfather's apartment. My aunt was there, cleaning his place because he needed the help. Then she noticed that I was missing. She tried looking all over for me...I could hear her calling my name. I was under there for a really long time and wasn't about to come out. Well, not come out until I heard the phrase "call the police". I was a smart kid; I knew the difference between Big Trouble and Really Big Trouble. Yeah, I got yelled at, but my mother would have killed me if the police had been involved.

When I was in first grade, I got really mad at my family. We lived on the top floor of a duplex at that time, so there was a stairway to a vestibule and front door. So I left the house but hid in the stairway. I saw them - my dad and my brothers - outside looking for me. I also heard my mom running around and yelling my name. The most hilarious thing about this is that I was in the front hallway and on the stairs the whole time. No one ever came down that way. They looked in the front door, they open the door at the top of the stairs and yelled for me, but no one physically walked down the stairs. I managed to stay out of sight for awhile. I finally came back up the stairs and walked into the house. I got yelled at.

In second grade, I decided that I was going to run away. I even had a bag packed. I marched downstairs (we lived in a townhouse at that time) and announced my departure. My mother and my brother sat around and laughed at me. "So what are you going to eat?" my mother asked. "How are you going to get food?" I was not happy with this. I felt like I was being made fun of (which, in a way, I was) and I was completely serious. I mean, there had to be some nice people I could live with...some childless couple who wanted a daughter. At the very least, someone was going to be concerned about a small child out there on the street by herself. I got so upset I went back to my room and cried.

I don't really remember any more incidents of trying to run away. At 16, I told my mother that I wanted to move out at 18. "Well, then," she said, "if you want to go to college, then you'll have to pay for it. We won't help you." I told her that I was sick of living with them. She just said "So what?" and then proceeded to badger me about getting an education and going to college, which meant living with them. I devised a plan to go to an out of state college. They hid all the mail from these places. Oh, and they weren't going to cosign any loans. At 18, I told them I was going to take six months off from any kind of school (boy, were they mad) and it turned into a year. At 20, I said that I would like to move out on my own for awhile. Again: "We're not going to help you with school then, and you have to finish school." So here I am at 24, asking myself the question, "What the fuck?" (Excuse my language, but if they haven't gotten the hint in the past 20 years that I don't want to live with them, then they are dense.) I will be finishing school, and I don't care if I have to live in a cardboard box underneath a bridge to do it, I will not live with them. Everyone envies my "comfortable" life, and yeah, it is better than most, but I haven't had a life of my own yet. I can't possibly have a life of my own, jumping through all of these hoops that my parents want me to. Entrapment. Caged. And now they want me to get a job where I'll be halfway across the country or the world. I just don't get it. Now I have to start out at the plans I had at 18 and go from there. And my mom's on crack if thinks I'm calling her with any regularity. I've been in purgatory and dammit, I'm going to enjoy my freedom. Once I leave here, she's going to get a shock that I just want to work and then do nothing. I don't give a damn about what she wants for me. I've fullfilled my requirements and if I never get married or never have children or have children without being married, I DON'T CARE. I earned the right to live for myself.

Which I might have to explain to them. I may be failing a class and have to take something else.