What can I say.  The next phase of my life, on my own, was not as spectacular as I would like.  Streets drugs were over.   Lesson learned…finally!

I went to school Monday to Friday until 1 in the afternoon, went to work from 2 to 9 PM Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, worked Sunday afternoons and any other shift I could pick up during the week.  Paid my rent, went out dancing every night after work.  Busy as can be but doing nothing really.  Just surviving, keeping my head above water and enjoying the freedom.

I started dating a university student, handsome and intelligent, but had such a strange way of looking at things that I just could not understand.  He was studying to be a psychiatrist, and he was able to discuss intelligently pretty much anything, but his ideas on how his “woman” should act were archaic.  Then again, I was still only 16, so technically, I wasn’t really a woman yet.  I didn’t fight his ideas but I didn’t bend to his wishes either.  I remember one evening we were supposed to go out dancing but he called and said he wanted to watch the game with his cousins and buddies.  He said he expected me to be there in an hour.  I said OK, hung up and got ready to go out dancing.  I wasn’t mad or disappointed, just not interested in spending the evening listening to him and his “crew” living vicariously through the TV  So, I went dancing…alone.

I did that often, being the friendly sort at the time.  I was never dancing alone for more than a second or two anyway before being joined by someone looking to make new friends.  Anyway, when I got home that night, at around 3AM, there he was, just sitting in the hallway next to my apartment door, half asleep.  He jumped up when he saw me, started yelling about “where were you?” “what were you doing?”"why didn’t you call?” etc…I pretty much ignored that noise, unlocked my door and told him “I went dancing, had a great time, hoped you enjoyed your evening too, now shut up and get lost so I can go to sleep”.   Thanks for making sure I got home safe and sound.  Night.”

I shut the door in his face, locked it and went to bed.

He didn’t call for a while but I’m not sure how long he pouted.  I was busy and pretty unconcerned.  Eventually, he called and said we needed to talk.  He came over, went on and on about how upset he was, scared that something had happened to me, what had I been thinking, was I mad?  I explained to him that I just quite simply was not interested in his plans for that evening, I wanted to go dancing and that is what I did.  I wasn’t mad and I wasn’t interested in continuing the conversation.   I was bored with the whole subject and his histrionics.  He shook his head, said I was “fascinating” to him and he couldn’t understand how my mind worked and that he often used my antics as an example in his classes!

OMG!  I was so angry about that I blew up!  Smoke was surely coming out of my ears.  I yelled at him, I paced my tiny apartment while I ranted on and on about invasion of my privacy and how dare he use me in such a way.

He was speechless.

I threw him out and didn’t speak to him for 2 years.

He called me often during the first 6 months after that night.  I would just hang up on him. Finally, he stopped calling and trying to see me.  I never gave him a second thought.  In my mind, I was done.  That’s it, that’s all.  When he called 2 years later to invite me for coffee, I agreed to meet him on university grounds.  He was so happy to see me and introduce me to his financee; they made a beautiful couple…him dark and handsome, her blond and lovely, very fashion-model looking and nice.  He wanted my opinion on what to do about his family not accepting her…I can’t remember why they didn’t want to have her in the family but it’s not really important…what sticks in my mind was the ridiculousness of the scenario.

Calling up your ex girlfriend, the freak of nature you used as case study in your classes, to ask her opinion on what to do about the current woman in your life, was just so incredibly ridiculous in my eyes.

I couldn’t stop laughing, tears streaming down my face. I tried to tell him what I was thinking but I just couldn’t stop laughing long enough to articulate a comprehensible sentence.  So…I just left…walked away… while I continued to laugh my ass off.

I wondered if he ended up marrying her later that year.  Poor girl.  I think he was very immature and silly.  If she did marry him I hope he grew up quickly for her.

With my skewed ADD/ADHD sense of time, I feel like I lived on my own for a long time.  When I look back now, I realize how short a time it really was.  Maybe 6 or 7 months in total.  What happened?

I would often find other people sitting by my doorway…an old friend of my big brothers’, dropping by to say hello and try to get romantic (NO WAY MAN!) plus way too often my younger brothers.

They would run away from home and come to my house, begging me to let them live with me.  Those times, when I had to return them to Mom‘s, were tough to face.  Heart wrenching.  I’d bring them back, walk them to the apartment door but wouldn’t go in myself.  And Mom wouldn’t be there answering the door either.

We were so weird.  What a bunch of fruitcakes.

Anyway, one evening, bored to death with all of my options, I opened a cupboard door in my kitchenette for the first time.  Spotting a fast moving little cockroach scurrying away to parts unknown, I slammed that cupboard door shut, threw my clothes and shoes into my luggage…(matching set of green garbage bags)…and left.  Never to return.

I moved back to my mother’s house…nobody blinked an eyelash at this.  Such a non-event it almost escapes my memory banks.  Why didn’t it leave my mind like SO many other details of my life?

Mom had a new “husband”.  A different kind of roach.

The previous lunatic had been committed to some type of “crazyhouse” for the criminally insane and he was replaced by this “new” good ole boy…one closer to her age and a raging alcoholic.

Great.  Just flippin’ great.

But, my little brothers were happy and relieved to have me back.  So that was cool.

I continued to work, gave my money to Mom and the kids and bought tons of shoes.  I went out on Friday and Saturday nights only.  During daylight hours I went to school, worked and took my younger siblings out to fun places for kids.  It was an ok time but it didn’t last long.

Before I knew it, I was done with school.

Time dragged endlessly when I was in a class.  Forced to listen to the continuous drone of a professor and the inane questions from my classmates drove me right off the deep end.  So…I just stopped going.

At the time, I was able to enrol in an accelerated adult education program offered by the government.    It would allow me to finish my grades 11 and 12 plus I would get to participate in an accelerated program in FRENCH for grades 9, 10 and 11!  SIGN ME UP!!! I did the whole thing with a 96% average in just a little more than a year.  DONE.  I was finally done.  Got not one diploma but 2 of them.

About freakin’ time man!

Plus, I still had that job, only it was part-time now.

And yes, I still lived at home with my family.

Crazy times.

Busy times.

Now what?

Now, I’m 18 years old and pregnant.

to be continued