The Road to College

After graduating high school I left the only town I had ever stayed in long enough to call home. I left my siblings, my family, my friends, and everything familiar to me for a six day road trip and summer travels before starting my Freshmen year of college. I knew I’d be back to pack my things and say goodbye so I was relatively comfortable leaving. It was just like any other summer I’d had. But I didn’t foresee that everything was going to crumble around my ears that summer.

After that six day road trip I’ve already mentioned, my mother, her boyfriend, and I finally made it back to Oregon, where they live. The trip was gorgeous and full of adventure and my mind was full of picturesque memories. Then I jumped on facebook one day to find a friend request from my father’s second wife, whom I’d grown quite attached to in the two years that she and my father were married. Accepting her friend request, my father suddenly popped up in a chat window, already chewing me out. My father and I argued via chat for about twenty minutes. I was standing up for myself and holding my father to something that he’d said. My father was angry because his ex would be able to see his statuses and anything else I commented on, thus giving her a way to be an intruder in his life. He didn’t want her knowing a thing about him now that they were divorced. Trying to be understanding and respectful, but quickly becoming very peeved, I retaliated with the various privacy settings that facebook offered. I was told that I was to remove my father’s second wife from my friend’s list or he would remove me from his. Normally that’s not a big deal, it’s a social networking site, why would I care? But I knew what my father meant. I knew that if he removed me from his friends list it was his way of removing me from his life. That part I really didn’t care too much about, which is another story all together. What I did care about however, were my siblings. If my father ejected me from his life, would I still get to have contact with my siblings? I knew I had to go home and pack my things still for college and then I still had to move to my college for me to even begin to worry about that. But I worried all the same. So I deleted my father’s ex wife and sent her a message explaining what had happened and sent a chat message back to my father that said, “Fine. Removed.” It was about ten minutes later when my father didn’t pop up on something that I realized that my father had deleted me anyway. Which meant insane trouble for me when I got home from my travels.

I figured I’d leave my father alone and let him calm down. Normally it would take him a few days to come off his soap box and realize he was being childish and then for things to become relatively normal again. So after about a few weeks, I emailed my father with the specs for what my first year at Lindenwood University (LU) would look like. My whole entire first year was paid for, they had an amazing Criminal Justice program, and I knew that LU was where I wanted to go. I remained cordial in my email to my father so as to not push any buttons and make things worse, or to set my father off again for some reason. I included all the numbers so that my father could see that my first year was paid for, and the date that I needed to go up to LU (I’d be home by then) to register for my classes. I politely told my father (months in advance) that I would like for him to take me to Registration Day. I was letting him know in advance so that he could have plenty of time to take off of work. The response I got was nothing short of cordial snobbishness letting me know that he wasn’t taking the day off, that I would need to find a different ride, and that maybe my boyfriend at the time (who my father didn’t agree with me dating because I didn’t “fit” into my boyfriends world) could take me. Frustrated but determined to remain polite or otherwise suffer the consequences when I got home from the summer, I responded that he needn’t worry about not being able to take the day off (giving him the benefit of the doubt), I had plenty of people willing to help me out. My father obviously couldn’t contain his anger that he was losing control and responded that it was amazing how fast I changed my face, that he was quite sure I did have people to help, and that he didn’t have anything left to say to me. More than frustrated and completely peeved, I decided I wasn’t going to take my father’s bull anymore. I responded to him that I hadn’t changed anything and that I didn’t have anything left to say to him either. His response, and knowing his temper, him, and his tendencies, was a threat.

“You’re real brave when you hide behind a keyboard. See you when you get home.”

I knew all too well what that meant and my very next emotion was fear. My father’s temper has been easily flared all my life and his tendencies to do things when angry have never been good. Now I knew he was way beyond angry, and I feared what would happen behind closed doors.

Towards the end of my summer travels we arranged a way for me to get to Registration Day and then to get home after that. The night I got home, state wise, I stepped off the plane with my siblings and felt like I was going to die. Would my father make a scene in the airport? My mouth was dry, my knees were weak, my head was light, and all I could think about was getting away from my father as fast as I could. Much to my mixed emotions, my father didn’t even acknowledge that I existed. Both him and his third wife never once looked at me or even acknowledged that I was there. No glares, no warning glances… nothing. I didn’t know which was worse, to be completely ignored or throttled in public. I think I would have preferred the latter. Saying goodbye to my siblings and bidding them a goodnight, but that I’d see them the following day, I caught the shuttle that would take me to my hotel.

The moment I buckled myself into the shuttle seat, everything that had happened crumbled any resolve I thought I had. I maintained my composure until I reached my hotel room, but things decided to continually go wrong. It was my first time staying in a hotel by myself. Newly eighteen and completely without help or advice, I made do with what I had… years of watching and learning. I dropped my things in my hotel room and kicked off my shoes, grabbed a dollar from my wallet, and decided to step out of my room to grab a soda. The vending and ice machines were directly across from my door. I propped my door open, simply prepared to step across the hall (about three feet!). Apparently, I didn’t prop my door open enough because my door closed, and much to my dismay, clicked letting me know I had just locked myself out of the room. The moment I stepped into the hall I stepped into an ice cold puddle of water on the carpet– in my socks. Trying the soda machine I discovered it wouldn’t take my dollar. Walking down to the front desk, where a very handsome young man about my age was working, I had to request a new room key– in my ice cold socks. It was completely obvious, at least to me, that I was a very inexperienced hotel customer. By the time I got back to my room I had had enough for the night. My emotions were on overload and I simply couldn’t keep my composure. Breaking down, I texted a good friend and role model about my situation explaining all that had happened, simply letting my emotions run a muck. It was then, at about two in the morning, that my friend decided she was going to come up to my hotel to be with me through the night and all through Registration Day the next day. And I was under orders not to protest. I will openly admit that I was relieved, but intensely scared that she was coming to be with me. If my father knew that she was with me I’d be in for it. And I was already in for it bad enough. I expressed my fears to my friend and then decided that I wouldn’t let my father scare me, I was eighteen and he had forced me to find my own way to college, even when I had been completely cordial until I literally couldn’t be. He would have to deal with whoever I chose to get involved, the choices weren’t his anymore.

Arriving at around four in the morning, my friend stayed with me for the next three hours while I dozed on and off until it was time to get up. I got ready and my friend and I headed out. Going through all the necessary processes to make sure that everything was in line, my friend was by my side the whole entire time. And when it came time that everything was done, she was still there. She offered to take me home, and I panicked. I wasn’t due to the bus station in my town for another eight hours and I was still scared that my father might find out that I was with her. I didn’t want my friend to get into trouble, I was unconcerned about me. My friend reassured me that she wasn’t taking me to my home, that she was taking me to hers. She said that she could either take me home later, or drop me off at the bus station for me to catch my ride from the bus station home (thanks to another good friend of mine). She told me I had time to decide and tell her later if I wanted. I stayed with my friend until just about the time that I was due to come into the bus station. My friend asked me if I was ready to go and that’s when I burst into tears. I wasn’t ready to go home, I was terrified of what waited for me there. A silent communication between my friend and her husband ensued, and then I heard my friend say, “I can’t make her not go”. Both she and her husband knew my fears and the person that lay behind them. My tears continued and my emotions whirled. If I didn’t go home I risked getting both her and I into more trouble than I could possibly handle. If I went home… the prospect was terrifying. And then my saving grace, in the form of my paternal grandmother, texted my phone and asked if I needed a ride home from the bus stop. I told her no, that I had a friend to drive me, but that I honestly was scared to go home. My grandmother’s next text, “So come here” saved me, but changed everything.

My friend drove me to my grandmother’s and my grandmother texted my father saying that I wasn’t coming home until things cooled down between my father and I. I was terrified that my father would come get me anyway and that I’d made my life more of a hassle than it was worth. Much to my relief I was proved wrong. Within the next couple of days my grandmother and I went to my father’s and packed my whole entire room to bring back to her house, sort through, and then pack up again for college. I faced my father that day and stood my ground, even when I normally would have given a few inches by taking steps back. I refused to let my father see that he intimidated me, I needed him to know that he didn’t have control over me or my life anymore. It was then that I discovered that my father was going to kick me out the day before school started for my siblings if I had gone home, so I was once again grateful for my friend and my grandparents. As school approached and I needed to move into my dorm, I discovered that my grandfather had to work, and my grandmother didn’t drive big metro cities, especially not Saint Louis. So once again I called on my friend, and her and her husband were once again my saving graces. They drove me up to Lindenwood, helped me get settled in, took me to lunch, brought me back, and bid me farewell for the time being. Their farewells were full of encouragement and reassurance that should I ever need them all I had to do was call or text and if I ever wanted to just get away, I had a place to go. Though my family wasn’t there with me because of circumstances and petty things, I had all the family I needed with me for those truly pivotal moments of my life.