What Really Happened

Growing up we lived in a double wide trailer on the end of the street, in a neighborhood full of older people. We had a small back yard with a magnolia tree, garden, and grape arbor. Eventually we had a shed, but since I'd like to set it on fire, I don't talk about it much. (Not much of a story there but painting that thing red in the heat of summer is something I would never do again and something I'll never forget.) In the front, we had a porch connected to the house and a beautiful weeping willow tree at the corner of the yard. I didn’t know I loved my home until I found out I had to leave it.

I was fourteen when my mom told me she was leaving my step-dad and that we would be moving, getting out of there finally. To be fair, she wasn't happy. It wasn't a healthy relationship, her and my step-dad, and they had too many issues to get past them anymore. I wanted my mom to be happy, but I didn't want to leave my home or the life I knew. I also didn't want to leave behind my pets, Gizmo and Sheena. Gizmo was one of our three cats. Sheena had been our dog for years and to this day I've never known another dog like her. To this day I miss that dog. She lived a quiet life and I still got to see her from time to time, but not at first.

At first things were bad. My mom and my now ex stepdad, argued all the time. They couldn't be around each other without yelling it seemed. So, he stayed away for a while and that's when things really changed. My mom and I started to drift during this period. I was starting high school and she worried I would get into the wrong things. So worried, that when it came down to her worry against my word, she went with her worry and pulled me out of school. My life turned upside down.

I had been homeschooled before and didn’t like it. I had been in fourth grade though and didn't know much of the outside world yet. This time I was fifteen and had friends and interests and goals and things that were going good for me. After that, they went from bad to worse. It wasn't long after my disappearance that a rumor started that the reason I was pulled out was because I'd had a child. In fact, for years people believed my younger sister was that child. That rumored followed all through college and even after. Imagine defending yourself over and over for something that wasn't even logically possible.

It wasn't the reason I got pulled out of school though. In truth, I had walked with a friend after a school dance to her grandpa's house uptown, when her step dad had failed to pick us up. I still remember so much about that night. My last night of freedom for awhile. When we had arrived to her grandpa's house, there were a few older high school boys there playing poker with him. He was real popular with juniors and seniors because he lived right next two one of the local bars.

We had no reason to believe we couldn't hang out for a bit. A chance to impress older boys! We each had a sip of beer but that had been it. Personally, I've always found the taste of beer to be disgusting. But we had wanted to impress. We had tried to phone her mom's house a couple times but there had been no answer. So, we let her grandpa take his friend home and when he got back, he would take us to my friend's house. Meanwhile, we would hang out and be cool while the older guys played poker. We had no intentions of hanging out all night or even having much further interactions with the guys. We just wanted to be cool.

When we finally hold of my friend’s mom on the phone, she said the words, "Tabitha, your mom is looking for you." And my stomach dropped. I knew I was in trouble already. I wasn't where I was supposed to be and had worried my mom. I was in for it big time. My mom had phoned my friend's house to check up on me and we weren't there yet, and with her mom having no idea where we were yet, I’d landed myself in the ultimate trouble. Coupled with my mom's already dissolving trust in me, based on what I'm still not sure, our relationship imploded after that. It wasn't the same until years later, after my daughter was born.

The anger and pent-up frustration in that house during my high school years was outstanding. Eventually I did go back to high school, but honestly, I think I'd have been better off staying away. Perhaps things would have turned out different, who knows. I do know that I had lost my mom and it ripped me apart in ways that took me years to figure out. I felt like I had no one to turn to, no one I could trust, and no where I felt safe. I relied on friends who were going through their own coming of age struggles, movies and TV shows for reference of life and how it was, and my grandparents for small spaces of peace. Though as I aged that became more infrequent. There were good times in my teenage years, don't get me wrong, but a lot of sadness and anger was built up and boxed away during that time. I threw myself in to all the wrong things and relationships, was more worried about boys and whether or not they could save me from my hell. So many mistakes. So many things I wish I could change about who I was and I who I became for a while.

Then, I suppose I wouldn't be where I am today and that would be a shame. Today and I am working through those traumas I pushed away for so long. Today I am reaching out my hand to that sad little girl and letting her know it's alright and we're going to be alright. It may take time, but eventually we will come out on the other side and find peace. Because, finally, I am working towards actually forgiving the past and understanding where it has lead me. To anyone out there trying to do the same, keep your chin up! It may not always be sunshine and rainbows, but it won’t be grey skies forever, either.