My first memory of my childhood is of my Mother crying on the floor. Her long black hair was covering her face so we could not see the blood or bruises, but I knew she had just gotten beaten by my father. I am not sure how old I was, but she left him when I was 5, so I couldn't' have been older than that. I can't recall exactly how I felt, I can only recall the image in my mind. Shortly after this, my Mother left my Father, and we lived with my Grandmother for about a year.
While living with her, we all shared one room and one bed, so my mother set out to find us a home of our own. She found a small three bedroom house on a hill with just a couple of neighbors. There wasn't much of a yard, but it was surrounded by woods. I remember walking into the living room together for the first time, she dropped to her knees and hugged us and cried. She said "This is our new home. Just the three of us." I will never forget how much I knew she loved us at that moment. I was 7 at the time.
Soon after moving into our hew home Jim began to play a part in our lives. Jim would become my Stepfather, and my non blood father for the rest of his life. At the time we met him, I was only six. He lived in a small apartment even though he made very good money as an airline pilot. His apartment was very close to his favorite bar, which made sense since he lost his license drunk driving just before meeting my Mother. At that time, she was a single Mom working as a bartender. We didn't have much, but we had enough. We were on welfare, had food stamps, got free lunches, and most of our clothes were from the thrift store. Within a short period of time, Jim showed us what it was like to have much more. He spoiled us with toys, candy, dinners and fun. By the time I was nine, we moved into a big and beautiful home with Jim. I was proud to live in that home. In some strange way it gave me confidence. I no longer had to use welfare lunch tickets, and my Mom even packed us lunch sometimes. I was tasting the life I saw so many other kids live. Unfortunately, I would celebrate my tenth birthday in that home, but never another.
Jim started drinking again and just weeks before Christmas my Mom left and moved us into a homeless shelter for Women. I remember that she made us oatmeal every morning. No other children had oatmeal in the morning. I remember clinging to that feeling of being different. I hoped it meant we didn't belong and our stay would be brief. Thankfully, we only lived in the shelter for a couple months. Eventually my Mother's pride broke down and she called home. The experience still fills me with gratitude and a perspective about life that is hard to describe.
When we moved back in with my grandmother, we had to share a room and bed again, I knew it was only a matter of time before my Mom would find us another home of our own. We were much bigger now and she took to sleeping on the couch. She found another job tending bar and we were once again starting at a new school. My most favorite and least favorite memory of this time is of walking home from the bus stop. It was a mile walk down a dirt road, sparsely scattered with a few houses. Along the way my brother and I would often stop to feed the pigs or pet the horses. Other days we were mad that nobody came to pick us up, and we kicked rocks at each other all the way home.
The next home of our own became a two story coal mining house in a valley. The house was falling apart. There was no floor in the kitchen and there was no ceiling in my bedroom. The outside was covered in slate that was puke yellow on top and shit brown on the bottom. There was one bathroom located in the basement. The basement was cold, damp, dirty, dark and full of potato bugs, centipedes and spiders. I did not want to live in this house. My Mother assured me that we would fix it up before we moved into it, and this was something that Jim did for us. He came back into our lives, feeling terrible for what he had done, but my Mother would not live with him again (yet...) The positive side to the house was the neighborhood. Although it was run down, woods were close and the neighborhood was full of other kids. I spent the next five years of my life in this home. From middle school to 11th grade. I had more experiences in that home than you'd believe. Many were positive, but many were painful. I'll give you a couple quick snap shots of what life was like there.
I was twelve when I started at West Allegheny Middle School. Before this point in my life, I never had time to worry about fitting in because I was quite young, never stayed in any school for very long, and usually had distracting turmoil at home. Now at the age of twelve, I found myself surrounded by girls who were catty and made fitting in a priority. I eventually made friends with a group of girls that had perfect homes, wore all the rights clothes, and did after school activities. Before Jim moved in with us, my Mom was working as a bartender again. My brother and I were on our own a lot, and my Mother did not have time to shuttle me to any sports or activities. I was able to bum rides with friends in order to play sports and do the things that I wanted to be a part of after school. The lack of stability growing up never affected my academics. I made the finals in a spelling bee at the age of 9, I never missed a single day of school (I have the perfect attendance certificates through middle school), and I made straight A's. At West Allegheny I chose friends who had the life I wanted - a Mom and Dad, a nice home, family dinners, etc). I went on this way for quite some time.
After living in the house for about a year, we became close with the other kids in the neighborhood. Most were from a similar home life as we were - slightly poor, somewhat dysfunctional. Quickly the older kids in the neighborhood realized our home was perfect for smoking and drinking since my mother was often absent. By the time I was fourteen, I smoked pot and drank alcohol, and I met my first serious boyfriend, Aaron Brown. He lived less than a mile away and I spent a lot of time reading and learning with him. We used to read stories out loud to each other, and often he would play guitar while I laid in his lap. We fell in love pretty quickly, and I do believe it was real. We had a lot to talk about and we loved to debate with each other, even when we agreed. We just found it fun to disprove the other. We never argued, we simply enjoyed pushing each other to see things another way. I never found someone to have this kind of relationship with again. Although Aaron and I did many good things together, we also spent a lot of time getting in trouble together. Mostly his fault. We did acid and ectasy, got underages, snorted coke, and I even went on a police chase picking him up from a home for trouble teens. Oh, and yes I did successfully evade the cops on that chase. After which Aaron declared me as his hero. Looking back I realize it was completely idiotic, as was most of the other things we did. Through all this, I still played sports, maintained my grades, and kept most of my friends. I often felt I lived two lives. I had two separate groups of friends who didn't mix, and I couldn't figure out which one I wanted to belong to. Although Aaron had no problem bringing me on a path of drugs, drinking and trouble, I do not doubt we truly loved each other. We were young and dangerously experimented together. To this day, we are still friends, bound by a reckless and adventurous youth. I was 16 when I decided to stop talking to Aaron for many years. I realized his path was not mine, but I will never forget what he taught me. He was brilliant and talented, but he wasted his youth until age 28. Not very many things make me as sad as this, but he is now clean and in school for making guitars, which makes me very happy. I guess it is never too late to become who we might have been...
I was 15 when Jim moved back in with us. At this point my brother and I were no longer innocent as we once were. Jim hated Aaron and my teenage attitude, and my brother's terrible grades and disobedience drove him crazy. My saving grace was my academic performance and the fact that my brother was more careless than I was, and for that reason he was usually distracting my parents from anything I was doing wrong. He and I became very close through all the years we spent growing up. We are very different, but we share a bond that I will never share with another person. During the time that Jim came back to live with us, my Mother lost her brother to a suicide. For over a year she took pills and drank heavily. I don't know what I would've done without Jim there. I remember her calling home some nights to tell me she was going to kill herself. At first I would try to talk her out of it, and then eventually I would get mad and start yelling at her to do it. Jim also became increasingly frustrated with her when she refused to snap out of her depression, and he began drinking again. Needless to say, my home life was a wreck at this time. I remember coming home one day with my friend Max. We were going upstairs to my bedroom to listen to music, and when we walked into my room, my mouth dropped. The whole room was ripped apart. At the time, I shared part of my room with my Mom because her and Jim's room had no closet or room for a dresser. Jim decided to rip all her clothes out of the closets and dresser, but some were mine. All our belongings were strewn over the room. He also threw everything off the dresser tops, and he even ripped all my posters off the wall. I didn't know what to do except cry. I remember Max telling me not to worry, it would be ok, and that he would help me clean up the mess. He knew what was going on at my home, and although embarrassed, I was thankful that he was there. I knew from that day forward we would always be friends.
By the time I was 17, things had seemed to calm down quite a bit. Jim and my Mom decided to move into a bigger house together agin. Our coal mining house was just too small for the four of us. I was surprised my Mother decided to move into a house owned by Jim again. After our first experience she swore she would never live in a home she could be driven out of, but I guess she changed her mind and decided to trust him again. But as I always say, history repeats itself. And that is a story for another day....
