by

Runaway

Going from growing up in a very small town in the Midwest, where every one is blonde with blue eyes, wears plaid shirts and baseball caps, and there is nothing but white people in the school (one building) grades one through twelve, and church. Where there are farms with dairy cows dotting the surrounding landscape. Where there is one grocery store, a post office, a bank, and a drug store on Main Street. But there are churches of all denominations on every other corner and a tavern on the other every other corners.

There wasn't a whole lot to do if you were a kid growing up there. In the summer we swam in the swimming hole about a half mile out of town. In the winter we ice skated. On the streets outside our houses. The snow would pack down to solid ice with the cars and trucks going over it. The neighboring town had a movie theater. A movie would run all month long, unless it was a good one and then it ran two months.

But the school was big on sports, football, basketball, track, and cheerleaders. We also had choir and in the summer our school band became a marching band. Our band uniforms were made of wool and they were handed down from one school year to another. I was a freshman and the smallest person in the band, and I inherited, as the last band member, the last remaining band uniform. It had been worn by a senior boy who outweighed me by over 100 pounds. My mother could sew and she did her best to take in the seams and I wore my uniform proudly. The parades were in the dead of summer with temperatures and humidity off the charts. And those wool uniforms chafed every moving part that I had. And none of us complained. We stayed in step and we played our instruments to the best of our ability. If we didn't we would face a major chewing out by the band instructor when Monday rolled around. School got out for the summer and after the first few days it got pretty boring. We rode our bikes, found odd jobs, went to summer school classes to make up credits or get extra credit. But for the most part, we stayed out of trouble.

Here is where the learning curve came in. After graduating from high school, the options were to go on to college somewhere, get jobs somewhere, but we left home in most cases. It was during Vietnam and many of my friends were leaving. A lot of my girlfriends were getting married. I did too. To a military man.

I went from a pretty carefree life, I had an apartment I shared with girlfriends, my own car and car payment and insurance and rent and on and on. But we had fun all the time. I made a good wage, I came and went as I pleased. I went to parties and did what I enjoyed.

Married life was no longer the good times I had expected. It was leaving the area and the people and the family and friends that I knew and moving with a man who would be gone much of the time. I had no idea what to do with myself. I discovered the marriage was very controlling. I was not permitted to have money. None. Not even pocket change. I walked to the library. We had one car and he drove it on base every day. A library card was free and walking I could do as long as I got home and had a meal ready.

Not much of a life. I admit to crying buckets, alone, when no one could hear. It went on like this for years. A lot of things happened. Different places, different bases, move, pack and unpack, and looking back on it. I can reflect. I can forget. I know it made me overcome a lot of things. I know it made me stronger. I know I eventually made a life I could be happy with.

I sometimes wonder what my life would have been like if I had stayed at my job, if I had never gotten married, if I had kept my lifestyle as it was. Would I have been happy? Would I remain content or gotten bored and restless?

Things happen for a reason. I learned a lot. I survived a lot. It made me stronger. I think I was always a little bit independent. That was stifled for a while but I never lost it or how to bring it back to me.

The curve to learn is this, don't give up on yourself. You are stronger than you think.

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