Thursday, August 14, 2008

Home Part 3: The Texas Years

Part I: The Wisconsin Years

Part II:  All In My Head

“Home” was June’s topic for NaBloPoMo.  It is obviously no longer June, but I wanted to continue the series.  Of course, the title of this post is misleading.  I don’t consider Texas home.  There is not a single house or apartment that I lived in that made me feel safe, comfortable or, well, any of the things that a home is meant to be.

In 1990, I moved to Texas with my mother and her significant other, D., who also happened to be my dad’s cousin.  This, you could say, was a little awkward, but I never once expressed to my mother that I thought so.  She had been dealt a pretty tough hand and I was just happy that she seemed happy.  Plus, D. was always one of my favorite relatives.  He was a musician with a great sense of humor and he always spoke to me as if I were an adult.  Unfortunately, he was also a long-time alcoholic.  Gosh, these trips down memory lane sure are jolly.  I’m just going to do a brief wrap-up of this part of the story, since I wasn’t living with them when this happened, but it is what it is.  They lived together a couple of years until the drinking became too much of a problem.  My mom kicked him out, it got worse and he died.  The end.

OK, so back to me.  I started my senior year in high school and met some fun people.  These fun people had a friend, M., who I thought was kind of a dick.  Then, this dick decided that I was the cat’s pajamas and I like the attention, so I moved in with him and his mother.  We managed to get kicked out of high school and celebrated by eloping.  We enrolled in a program to get our high school diplomas (accelerated program, usually for pregnant girls).  I did all of the homework for both of us and we graduated.  We moved into our first apartment, got a dog and fought a lot.  Two months in, I decided that it was the stupidest thing that I had ever done and tried to tell him that I wanted out.  He convinced me to stay and we bought another dog.

We hopped from one apartment to another, never leasing for more than a year.  I can pack and unpack your one bedroom apartment and have a modest housewarming party set up in fewer than 24 hours.  I was never attached to any of them and was so busy hating M. that I really didn’t have the time or energy to invest in my surroundings.

Finally, seven years into it, I decided that I deserved to be a happier person and I left.  I went to the bank, took out exactly half of our savings and rented my own apartment.  I went home, started packing and, when M. got home, told him that I had a new place to live and that he could go fuck himself.  He reacted by quitting his job and becoming a full time drug dealer.  I was obviously holding him back from his true calling all those years.

Shortly after moving out on my own, I met Tom.  He already had plans to move back to Missouri and I had already decided that I couldn’t stay in Texas much longer.  Serendipity, you’re the best.  You helped me find a home.