Re: Hey -- how about running away?

[Guest guest]

Yes,I wanted to run away many times.By the time I was a teenager I figured that

nobody would believe me,that I had a legitimate reason to want to run away from

my " nice middle class " home and that I'd be laughed at and sent back.There was a

shelter for runaways in the nearest big city but I was sure I'd be told if I

went there to stop being so ridiculous and to go home.

Nada had told me all of my life that I wasn't her " real daughter " so many

of my running away dreams were based on finding my " real " mother.When I was

eleven I concocted a plan to gather discarded " Bazooka " gum wrappers to make

enough money to go out to LA and get myself hired to be on some tv show in the

hopes that once my " real " mother saw me on tv,she'd come forward to claim me.I

spent hours collecting discarded " Bazooka " gum wrappers because if you had so

many of one type you could send them away to the company and receive a small

toy: my plan was to send away for lots of little free toys and then sell them at

a mark up to other kids at a price that was less than what they'd have to pay

for something similar at the corner store.I figured it would take me a year to

collect and sell enough of these toys to afford a bus ticket out to LA.

I had a huge bag of these discarded wrappers in my bedroom closet

arranged by type,kept together in bunches with paper clips--but nada found the

bag and threw it out.Probably a good thing because if I'd managed to make enough

money for a bus ticket I would have done it and god knows what might have

happened to me.

The Spring I was sixteen my " parents " threw me out of the house,mostly

just to frighten me and apparently thinking I'd come crawling back begging for

forgiveness once I'd had a taste of the " real world " .Instead I spent a couple of

months going from friend's house to friend's house---with all of their parents

counseling me to just go home and make up with Mommy and Daddy.

" Promise me you'll go home " ,they said when I left...like hell...I just

went to another friend's for a few nights,until their parents said the same

thing...then I stayed with gay men I had met in my wanderings in the city and

thank god for them because otherwise I would have been prey,young and alone out

on the streets...but even with them,there was a limit to how long I could crash

with them and *nobody* offered any guidance or wanted to really get involved

with my " situation " ...all of this time I continued to attend school while

experiencing aggravation from the head master who kept sanctioning me for

sparking off a mini revolt at the school among the staff and the students and

who banned me outright from the school grounds later in the Spring...it was

pretty surreal because most of the students knew I was effectively " homeless "

but they thought it was like an adventure and I was like this rebel who could

handle it...I was also having an affair with one of the female teachers who

didn't want to get " caught " with jailbait so she never offered to shelter me in

any kind of meaningful way,which was a slap in the face for me...one of the days

the headmaster refused to let me into the school and I felt like my back was

just to the wall I took the subway to my grandmother's house to ask her if I

could stay with her and she made me plead with her on her doorstep for something

like a half an hour until I was able to strike a deal with her because she kept

saying she'd " never have anyone " live with her: I offered to be her maid

basically and finally she accepted....so I lived with her through that late

Spring and summer,at her beck and call and it sucked but it was preferable to

having to go from place to place to place and worrying that I'd have to hide in

some doorway for the night and having to constantly depend on the " kindness of

strangers " ...During this time I decided to make plans to go abroad and moved

back in with nada and fada but only because that made it easier for me to work a

part time job and at the end of the next summer I got on a plane and left for

real

>

> I have had a very busy week dealing with a sick pet chicken, so I haven't been

here a lot. Or watching tv--caught up on some last night.

>

> I watch Parenthood--for some reason the family dynamics really hit home. I

love how the characters can really argue with each other--all at the same time.

Nothing was allowed like that in my house. Everyone was afraid of upsetting

nada--no one spoke their mind but her.

>

> Anyway, one of the teen characters is very unhappy with her parents and

decided to run away (to the loving grandma). I got to thinking about why I never

chose to run away. Then I wondered what the rest of you KOs had to say about

your feeling/experiences.

>

> Here are mine:

>

> 1) Every time I felt like running away, a great sense of " I can't do that to

my family, look what we are already dealing with " would pop in my mind. My

father and I lived their under siege, I was not going to make it worse for fada.

>

> 2) I felt if I did run away, there was no one/place to run to. No one in the

family would believe me and there were no friends.

>

> In the end, I just 'did my time' until I could get the hell out of her house.

>