Leaving Long Island
So, next summer is my 10 year high school reunion. My closest friend (whom I met and befriended during French class) and I talk about this quite a bit. I think that we have probably mentioned it quite a few times over the past two to three years. Neither one of us have ever thought about NOT going, which in itself is strange.
I for one was never very happy in high school. Freshman year I felt like an outcast. Keep in mind that I went to a private (i.e. Catholic) high school that came with a hefty price tag and families that for the most part didn't ever have to worry about the cost of the school, the uniform or any related activities.
Getting back to freshman year. My parents had been deep in divorce proceedings for over a year and money was tight to say the least. The idea of purchasing a uniform was ludicrous. So, my mom borrowed my friend’s brand new uniform skirt and meandered to the nearest fabric store to see if she could match the dull gray wool. She did pretty well actually - it took about a month before anyone said anything to me about it.
At 14 years old the notion of being poor became a hard core reality for me. Not that my family was by any means well off. Not at all, but we had food on the table and new shoes when they were needed, and the occasional treat just because. But after my parents split up, that went away. The summer before high school (the same summer my mom sewed my uniform) we went without food occasionally. Our phone was turned off. The lights almost went too. The only reason why they didn't is because my brother was only 3 at the time. They had no problem turning it off if the youngest was only 11 (my sister) but they couldn't turn them off with a 3 year old in the house. The funniest thing was that I didn't care about not having cable TV or food or the newest toy on the market or even an actual school issued uniform. I was most upset by not having a working phone in the house. At 14, I was thinking about boys and new friends and not being able to give them my phone number should they ask. I felt inadequate and out of place. This feeling would persist throughout the majority of my educational career.
And to make matters worse the school was threatening to not let me attend because my tuition was not paid. By the time this was resolved, I had missed the assigned orientation day, and had to attend a different one. Somehow through out all of this turmoil I managed to get on the highest honor roll. That didn't last.
Sophomore year. At this point, I was no longer speaking to my dad. And his moving out of the state didn't faze me on the surface. For a little girl who felt like her dad left her when he moved across town, moving out of state was a death knell on any reconciliation hopes. Once again my lovely high school was harassing me about tuition payments. Somehow I got by that year with donations from Catholic Charities. But this was not the only issue. I lived every day wondering if this would be the day that the sheriff showed up at the house. The day that the bus would drop me off and I would see all of my belongings strewn across the lawn with a big metal padlock on the front door.
The cloud over my head was the knowledge that the only house I had ever know, my security blanket per se, was tied up in court in foreclosure proceedings. Why at 15 did I know this? Because my mother told me about it over and over and over again. For a long time she used it as a scare tactic to keep the four children in line. After a while it lost all its meaning. Until it came true.
Of course it wasn’t as dramatic as the sheriff dragging us kicking and screaming out of the house. We were given a deadline to pack up and go. Well, call me an optimist, but I didn't want to pack. A fairy tale lover at heart, I was waiting for someone to swoop in and fix it. No one did. My mom wouldn't function, so her dad called the movers, her sister arranged storage, and my grandmother opened her 3 bedroom home (which she already shared with my uncle) to my mom and her four children.
It’s ironic that my first month in my grandmother’s house was spent a lot like my last two years there. I slept on the floor in the living room and lived out a suitcase.
At the same time as the move I was looking forward to my junior year at high school. The idea of being an upperclassman was wonderful. Then reality hit again. Once again tuition was due and no money around. Well having exhausted the Catholic Charities angle the previous year, the only thing I could do was get a job. Which I promptly did. Most people used a bank to cash their paychecks. I went to the front office. They would take my check every week apply the bulk of it towards my tuition and give the 20 bucks or so that was left over. That was always fun.
But I did manage to get a boyfriend. He didn't last very long though. In retrospect the "relationship" never should have lasted as long as it did. I should have realized that when he was arrested at work (we worked at the same supermarket) for attacking our boss who caught him stealing a Yoo-hoo, that the boy had violent tendencies. Well, I waited until they were directed at me before I ended it. (Side note: my sister tried to help him get back on my good side - even AFTER she knew what had happened)
So here is my schedule from my junior and senior years of high school. Up at 6 am, on the bus by 7, in school around 8. Leave school on the bus by 3, home by 330 or 4. 15 minutes to change out of my uniform before leaving again. At work by 430. Leave work at 1030, get home by 11. Have a quick bite to eat and do it all over again. Great huh? Thank god for the long bus ride and study halls, otherwise I would never have had time for homework.
It’s no wonder that I sunk so easily into a depression. There was no time for fun. School work sleep school work sleep school work sleep
So here comes senior year, still going strong. I had a great summer. My two younger siblings were gone all summer long, which meant I wasn't a permanent babysitter when I wasn't working. I actually had a boyfriend! I had hung out with friends and had a really good time. But my abandonment issues reared their ugly head that august. My newly acquired quasi boyfriend (he referred to our relationship as "seriously seeing each other") was leaving for Philadelphia at the end of august. He was getting out. (We had that in common - a strong desire to get away from the miserable existence of being teenagers on Long Island).
I didn't know what to do with myself. The one good thing in my life was leaving me. I only knew one way to deal with it. I started cutting myself. It was pretty tame in the beginning. I remember seeing a compass (the thing that has a pencil on one side for drawing circles) on the floor in my room. I took it and started scratching the skin around my ankles. Leaving red marks in the shape of my boyfriends initials.
This behavior continued though the school year, escalating all the while. In December, I officially ended the relationship. I say official since we had not seen nor spoken to each other in weeks, even though he was back on Long Island for Thanksgiving and then Christmas.
The worst was when I got my hands on a box cutter, which was actually quite easy. I was given one at work so that I could help pack out groceries on the weekends. But this just meant that I now how easy access to fresh blades. The most memorable cut (for which I still have some scarring) I engraved an X on my hand. Nice and visible. Nobody asked about it. Then there was the night that I “came out” to my friends about my cutting. They didn’t believe me. So we left our hangout – the diner – walked out to the parking lot and I whipped out my cutter (yes I traveled with it) popped up the blade and swiped quickly at my arm. I have a nice scar from that one as well.
During all this I would walk around school with these stuck up phonies whose only worry was which color car they were getting for graduation. “The beautiful people”. They were all smart, well off, cheerleader or football captain types. Stuck up phony assholes. If you weren’t one of them, then make sure you stay far, far away. I remember one instance where I was sitting in the gym watching a pep rally or something similar when one of the beautiful people screamed across the gym at me. What did he say? “SLUT” Why? Who the hell knows? I certainly wasn’t a slut then and quite honestly I may have had some slutty moments after college but certainly not back then. (At that point in my life I think the most I had done was kissing someone – maybe French kiss.)
So its no wonder that I wanted out of that environment. I wanted to get as far away from those people and the situations I found myself in as possible. So I went to school reasonable close by (the Bronx), reconciled with my dad, and then moved across the country to Vegas.
Even funnier is that any time I go back to LI for a visit I always run into someone. Usually they are acquaintances, but people who I never allowed into my close circle of friends because I felt they were phony. And the worst part about running into these people is enduring their fake banter while they pretend to care about you. All they really want is to tell people how fabulous they are. I don’t have time for that crap.
So then why am I going to the reunion? To see just how bad off most of the beautiful people are. I already know that one of the golden boys is covered in dirt and I can’t wait. (This would of course be the one who randomly called me a slut). All the girls will be fat or droopy or just plain ugly with loser husbands/boyfriends and I can’t wait to walk in there and strut my stuff. Isn’t this the only reason why people go to reunions?
I for one was never very happy in high school. Freshman year I felt like an outcast. Keep in mind that I went to a private (i.e. Catholic) high school that came with a hefty price tag and families that for the most part didn't ever have to worry about the cost of the school, the uniform or any related activities.
Getting back to freshman year. My parents had been deep in divorce proceedings for over a year and money was tight to say the least. The idea of purchasing a uniform was ludicrous. So, my mom borrowed my friend’s brand new uniform skirt and meandered to the nearest fabric store to see if she could match the dull gray wool. She did pretty well actually - it took about a month before anyone said anything to me about it.
At 14 years old the notion of being poor became a hard core reality for me. Not that my family was by any means well off. Not at all, but we had food on the table and new shoes when they were needed, and the occasional treat just because. But after my parents split up, that went away. The summer before high school (the same summer my mom sewed my uniform) we went without food occasionally. Our phone was turned off. The lights almost went too. The only reason why they didn't is because my brother was only 3 at the time. They had no problem turning it off if the youngest was only 11 (my sister) but they couldn't turn them off with a 3 year old in the house. The funniest thing was that I didn't care about not having cable TV or food or the newest toy on the market or even an actual school issued uniform. I was most upset by not having a working phone in the house. At 14, I was thinking about boys and new friends and not being able to give them my phone number should they ask. I felt inadequate and out of place. This feeling would persist throughout the majority of my educational career.
And to make matters worse the school was threatening to not let me attend because my tuition was not paid. By the time this was resolved, I had missed the assigned orientation day, and had to attend a different one. Somehow through out all of this turmoil I managed to get on the highest honor roll. That didn't last.
Sophomore year. At this point, I was no longer speaking to my dad. And his moving out of the state didn't faze me on the surface. For a little girl who felt like her dad left her when he moved across town, moving out of state was a death knell on any reconciliation hopes. Once again my lovely high school was harassing me about tuition payments. Somehow I got by that year with donations from Catholic Charities. But this was not the only issue. I lived every day wondering if this would be the day that the sheriff showed up at the house. The day that the bus would drop me off and I would see all of my belongings strewn across the lawn with a big metal padlock on the front door.
The cloud over my head was the knowledge that the only house I had ever know, my security blanket per se, was tied up in court in foreclosure proceedings. Why at 15 did I know this? Because my mother told me about it over and over and over again. For a long time she used it as a scare tactic to keep the four children in line. After a while it lost all its meaning. Until it came true.
Of course it wasn’t as dramatic as the sheriff dragging us kicking and screaming out of the house. We were given a deadline to pack up and go. Well, call me an optimist, but I didn't want to pack. A fairy tale lover at heart, I was waiting for someone to swoop in and fix it. No one did. My mom wouldn't function, so her dad called the movers, her sister arranged storage, and my grandmother opened her 3 bedroom home (which she already shared with my uncle) to my mom and her four children.
It’s ironic that my first month in my grandmother’s house was spent a lot like my last two years there. I slept on the floor in the living room and lived out a suitcase.
At the same time as the move I was looking forward to my junior year at high school. The idea of being an upperclassman was wonderful. Then reality hit again. Once again tuition was due and no money around. Well having exhausted the Catholic Charities angle the previous year, the only thing I could do was get a job. Which I promptly did. Most people used a bank to cash their paychecks. I went to the front office. They would take my check every week apply the bulk of it towards my tuition and give the 20 bucks or so that was left over. That was always fun.
But I did manage to get a boyfriend. He didn't last very long though. In retrospect the "relationship" never should have lasted as long as it did. I should have realized that when he was arrested at work (we worked at the same supermarket) for attacking our boss who caught him stealing a Yoo-hoo, that the boy had violent tendencies. Well, I waited until they were directed at me before I ended it. (Side note: my sister tried to help him get back on my good side - even AFTER she knew what had happened)
So here is my schedule from my junior and senior years of high school. Up at 6 am, on the bus by 7, in school around 8. Leave school on the bus by 3, home by 330 or 4. 15 minutes to change out of my uniform before leaving again. At work by 430. Leave work at 1030, get home by 11. Have a quick bite to eat and do it all over again. Great huh? Thank god for the long bus ride and study halls, otherwise I would never have had time for homework.
It’s no wonder that I sunk so easily into a depression. There was no time for fun. School work sleep school work sleep school work sleep
So here comes senior year, still going strong. I had a great summer. My two younger siblings were gone all summer long, which meant I wasn't a permanent babysitter when I wasn't working. I actually had a boyfriend! I had hung out with friends and had a really good time. But my abandonment issues reared their ugly head that august. My newly acquired quasi boyfriend (he referred to our relationship as "seriously seeing each other") was leaving for Philadelphia at the end of august. He was getting out. (We had that in common - a strong desire to get away from the miserable existence of being teenagers on Long Island).
I didn't know what to do with myself. The one good thing in my life was leaving me. I only knew one way to deal with it. I started cutting myself. It was pretty tame in the beginning. I remember seeing a compass (the thing that has a pencil on one side for drawing circles) on the floor in my room. I took it and started scratching the skin around my ankles. Leaving red marks in the shape of my boyfriends initials.
This behavior continued though the school year, escalating all the while. In December, I officially ended the relationship. I say official since we had not seen nor spoken to each other in weeks, even though he was back on Long Island for Thanksgiving and then Christmas.
The worst was when I got my hands on a box cutter, which was actually quite easy. I was given one at work so that I could help pack out groceries on the weekends. But this just meant that I now how easy access to fresh blades. The most memorable cut (for which I still have some scarring) I engraved an X on my hand. Nice and visible. Nobody asked about it. Then there was the night that I “came out” to my friends about my cutting. They didn’t believe me. So we left our hangout – the diner – walked out to the parking lot and I whipped out my cutter (yes I traveled with it) popped up the blade and swiped quickly at my arm. I have a nice scar from that one as well.
During all this I would walk around school with these stuck up phonies whose only worry was which color car they were getting for graduation. “The beautiful people”. They were all smart, well off, cheerleader or football captain types. Stuck up phony assholes. If you weren’t one of them, then make sure you stay far, far away. I remember one instance where I was sitting in the gym watching a pep rally or something similar when one of the beautiful people screamed across the gym at me. What did he say? “SLUT” Why? Who the hell knows? I certainly wasn’t a slut then and quite honestly I may have had some slutty moments after college but certainly not back then. (At that point in my life I think the most I had done was kissing someone – maybe French kiss.)
So its no wonder that I wanted out of that environment. I wanted to get as far away from those people and the situations I found myself in as possible. So I went to school reasonable close by (the Bronx), reconciled with my dad, and then moved across the country to Vegas.
Even funnier is that any time I go back to LI for a visit I always run into someone. Usually they are acquaintances, but people who I never allowed into my close circle of friends because I felt they were phony. And the worst part about running into these people is enduring their fake banter while they pretend to care about you. All they really want is to tell people how fabulous they are. I don’t have time for that crap.
So then why am I going to the reunion? To see just how bad off most of the beautiful people are. I already know that one of the golden boys is covered in dirt and I can’t wait. (This would of course be the one who randomly called me a slut). All the girls will be fat or droopy or just plain ugly with loser husbands/boyfriends and I can’t wait to walk in there and strut my stuff. Isn’t this the only reason why people go to reunions?
posted by Shannon @ 11:30 PM
0 comments
