Ages 11-12

-Developed breasts at 11 and was tormented by flat-chested peers over it. Walked around with my arms crossed in front of my chest for two years.

-Started breaking out with acne the same year, and was tormented by my peers over it. Became obsessed with wearing makeup because I thought I was so ugly. Thwarted by evil-dictator father.

-Gained a little weight as I neared puberty and was tormented by peers and evil-dictator father over it. (Dad thought the way to 'help' me was to make me "get mad enough to do something about it!")

-For all my concern with appearances, I never actually got that fashion was important socially. Always wanted to dress like book and movie characters, even at school. This, of course, increased my popularity tremendously.

-As did my complete lack of athletic prowess. The rope in gym class? Kicked my chubby butt. My nickname in gym was 'Easy Out' and my position as last picked for any team sport was secure.

-Tormented by classmates every time I drew attention to myself, still I craved attention and acted stupid and silly in order to get it. Then would get all upset and cry and fight when teased and picked on.

-A terrific fifth grade teacher took me under her wing and tried to help. I was a hopeless case and there was nothing she could do to help me change my socially retarded behavior... I just didn't GET it. But her friendship and attention really helped me to feel less lonely and hated.

-I bought two white mice at Woolworths (unbeknownst to my mother) and took them to school in a matchbox. Got in trouble. Stuck the matchbox in my bookbag to take home, and when I pulled it out later at home, only had ONE white mouse. Mother was frantic. Cat eventually got that mouse, killed it and dropped it in the toilet. Discovered the mummified remains of lost mouse a few months later. It had gotten squished between two books in my bookbag which were then taken out of the bag and left to sit on my dresser for several months. (No, I never noticed a strange odor in my room. It already smelled like the city dump anyway.)

-Realized that not doing my homework actually WAS an option, which had never occurred to me before. Teachers and parents could yell and scream and kick their feet, but they couldn't actually MAKE me do anything. Started getting abominable grades. Which I thought was extremely unfair, as I was still getting A's on my tests. It just wasn't RIGHT that lack of homework should count towards my grade if my tests showed I knew the material! (I still think this, to tell you the truth.)

-Tested by the school psychologist to find out WHY I was getting abominable grades. I was told I had a 'negative attitude' and needed to 'apply myself.' My parents were told that I was too smart for 5th grade, that the work was not challenging enough. Recommended skipping me up a grade. Parents were afraid I wouldn't fit in socially with 6th graders. (Because I was fitting in so well socially with 5th graders, you see.) Parents not very bright. Grade-skipping vetoed by parents, but they and the psychologist decide to 'enrich' my educational experience by placing me in a 6th grade creative writing class. Naturally, my fifth grade peers were very happy for me and began to treat me more nicely because of it. Um, yeah.

-Parents divorced when I was 10, and evil-dictator dad moved out. I began running wild, shaving my legs and wearing� gasp� red nailpolish! And short shorts! Dad tried to keep enforcing his Amish-like standard of feminine grooming on me. He'd even feel my legs when I got in the car for our weekly visitation (to make sure I wasn't shaving� he wasn't a pervert or anything.) He gave up after a few weeks when he realized that not having custody meant that I didn't really HAVE to do what he said anymore (neaner neaner.) Our relationship actually worked better when he laid off the heavy disciplinarian thing and started with the "I'll always be here if you need to talk" stuff. Eventually I even quit hating him.

-My mother began shacking up with boyfriend, which, in 1976 qualified her for the title of "Town Whore." None of my few remaining friends were allowed to play at my house because of the bad influence. I couldn't hack it and went to live with my grandparents. Couldn't deal with having rules and chores so moved back with my mother when she finally remarried and moved to a new town.

Ages 13 to 16

-Skipped class for the first time in seventh grade. Spent it in the bathroom with another girl, and when called to the principal's office, said we were in there looking for a ring that had fallen down the sink. I don't think they believed us.

-Started smoking at 13. Because it was cool.

-Started shoplifting. Because I wanted stuff and didn't have any money. (It made sense to me at the time.) I rationalized that it wasn't immoral because: 1) I only stole from stores, not from actual people, and 2) I only took little, relatively inexpensive stuff, not clothing. Well, except for a couple of tops. I didn't take jeans� yeah, so it wasn't shoplifting as long as I didn't steal pants. That�s it. Mostly what I stole was make-up and jewelry. And "The Sensuous Woman" by J. Actually, I had to steal that one twice, because my grandma caught me reading it and ripped it up. (Good book, for a sexually inexperienced female in 1979, anyway. It taught me how to give a blow job--handy thing to know, even if I didn't try out the knowledge til a few years later.)

-I got my first boyfriend at 13 and discovered the joys of making out and getting felt up.

-Drank two bottles of Boone's farm wine on the night of my 13th birthday, a gift from my stepfather who thought it would be funny. It was, or so I'm told. At least until I barfed and my mother made him clean me up. A lovely family story for awhile was that he hesitated taking my shirt off and I asked him, "Whatsa matter, haven't you ever seen tits before?" I was such a riot.

-I still occasionally dressed in costume. My favorites were two-bit whore, and the after-makeover "Sandy" from "Grease." Which amounted to the same thing. Once I went to high school dressed in only the top half of one of my mom's nursing uniforms (looked like a mini-dress� VERY mini!) I wore it with high heels, slutty makeup and feathers in my hair. I told my mom it was career day at school and we were supposed to dress up� I was going as Nurse Goodbody. (I was slowly getting better at the whole lying thing.) The school principal gave me the choice of going home to change or else putting on sweatpants from the gym. He wound up taking me home to change.

-I discoved that I could skip whole DAYS from school. I once spent a weekday morning skipping school in a bar with my stepdad. He told everyone I was his wife, and they bought me cokes and gave me money for the juke box. Then my mother burst in around noon and dragged me out by my hair.

-Smoked bad pot given to me by stepdad. Hallucinated, had panic attack. Started having anxiety attacks because of it. Pretty much cured me of the desire to experiment with drugs. Alcohol remained drug of choice.

-Would drink whatever I could get my hands on, (except for beer.) Got my hands on a quite a bit because of stepdad. He'd buy me wine and liquor because he thought my drinking was funny. Other times I'd just steal wine from my mom.

-Stepdad started to get pissy because of my general behavior and because I wouldn't kiss him with tongue. I moved in with my grandparents again.

-Sent to a private Christian school, got kicked out for smoking. Still couldn't deal with having rules and chores so moved back with mother when she divorced crazy stepfather and moved to a trailer park.

-Got thrown out of trailer park for swearing. Manager heard me fighting with neighbor kids and told my mom I had the foulest mouth she'd ever heard. Mother abandoned trailer because she couldn't afford to make the payments anyway and we moved in the middle of the night leaving half our stuff behind.

-Moved with mom to a trailer way out in the country. Mom worked second shift and paid me $25 a week to babysit brothers (then 2 and 3 years old.)

-Was lonely and bored, so would leave baby brothers alone in trailer for a couple of hours at a time while I walked up to pay phone in the nearest village. Mother was livid when she found out, but didn't have much choice for a sitter so she kept letting me babysit.

-Was not impressed with mother's dire warnings of possible consequences of leaving toddlers alone. Continued to leave occassionally to go use the phone.

-Used phone to call boy-crush from old school. Didn't have any money so I charged the long-distance calls to the phone number of a girl I hated from old school.

-Strangely enough, her parents were not amused at finding $120 worth of calls charged to their phone, and complained to the phone company who tracked me down in about 5 seconds by talking to the parents of the boy I was calling. The boy ratted me out. My grandparents paid the phone charges to keep me out of court and tried to impress upon me the seriousness of what I'd done. I was just mad because I'd been embarrassed in front of the boy-crush.

-Skipped school whenever I could to spend time with mom, who I rarely saw otherwise.

-Only real social life was spending the night with a girlfriend from one of my old schools. Her mother was never home either so we pretty much did whatever we wanted. She had an older boyfriend, who began to introduce me to older guys.

-I lost my virginity at 15 to a guy who was 24. We did it in the back of his van in my friend's driveway. I was tipsy on beer at the time, but I had been planning to do it for weeks anyway. Ever since seeing the movie "Little Darlings." (Yes, I was the most impressionable individual alive.) I never saw the guy again. He did call me a few months later, but by then I was married and pregnant. He said he didn't care. Nice.

-I slept with a couple of other guys kind of casually. I wasn't looking for a boyfriend, thought we could be sex-buddies, but the guys involved seemed unable to respect a girl who put out casually. I got sick of feeling used very quickly and stopped having sex for a few months until I met Doug.

-Didn't like Doug at first because of his druggy reputation but allowed myself to be charmed and wound up being his girlfriend. He was 21, I had just turned 16.

-Started having Doug stay overnight at my house. Mother freaked out first time, but then threw up her hands and said "whatever." By this time she knew I'd find a way to do what I wanted anyhow.

-Doug worked nights so he'd come over around midnight and stay over with me. I'd be too tired to go to school in the morning. I was on a first name basis with the truant officer in that town. I have almost no memory of attending that high school even though I lived in that town for five months.

-Still drinking a lot, mostly wine purchased by new alcoholic stepfather. Once drank almost an entire bottle of Seagram's whiskey, ate Kraft chicken and noodles and puked on the stairs. Was 16 and pregnant at the time.

-Moved in with grandparents AGAIN. Refused to go to school for two weeks, finally grandmother MADE me go. We went and got me registered to start the following day. I skipped. She drove me there the day after that, and watched me go in the front door. I went out the back as soon as she drove away, and began walking to Doug's house some five miles away. Was picked up as truant by the police and delivered into my grandmothers custody.

-At the end of her rope, grandmother called Doug and told him if he didn't marry me she was going to send me to a boarding school for unwed mothers. After much hemming and hawing he decided to marry me.

-I was two months pregnant when we married, 3 months after my 16th birthday. I wore a purple sundress with beads and feathers on it, which I bought because I was mad at my grandma for not letting me buy another (normal-type) dress I wanted. She wanted to look around some more, so I got mad and went to the mall alone in search of the wildest dress I could find.

-Two months after I got married I miscarried while visiting my in-laws in another town. Found out later that some of my relatives thought I'd had an abortion. I didn't.

Age 16+

-Spent the next three years in an abusive relationship with a drug addict, until I finally started to grow up and get my life together at 18. Wound up divorcing when it became apparent that Doug couldn't deal with a grown up who was getting her life together.

-Met second husband, the kiddo's father, shortly after divorcing Doug. Our relationship was based on drinking and sex. We moved in together to have more time for sex and more money for drinking. Even though our relationship was rocky, we got married on a whim eighteen months later. We literally planned our wedding in two weeks from the time we made the decision to marry.

-We continued our lifestyle of drinking, barhopping and fighting until I got pregnant unexpectedly nine months after we were married. That was the beginning of settling down for both of us. I was 22 at the time.

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Last Five
Crappy job crap, weird neighbor, and someone whose baby I apparently want to have - 2006-05-08
Live from the dump - 2006-04-09
Kind of like a muzzle for your brain - 2006-03-29
...and then she fell ass-first into my cereal bowl - 2006-03-28
Playing catch-up - 2006-03-27

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