18th Birthday (True Story)

18th Birthday (True Story)

         Usually you would think “Yeah! I’m turning eighteen soon!” However, in my case it seemed as though the closer my birthday came, the closer I was to Hell’s door.

         A month before my birthday, May 8th, 2007 it had seemed as though things were going to be great. I had gone to a local trap shoot with my mom and little sister. While there I spotted a guy, Ben, that had graduated two years past and with whom I had been great friends. Soon my sister started whining about going home and he told my mom that he would bring me home later so that I could stay.

         During the trip home he mentioned to me how he had a crush on me since ninth grade (I was in seventh at the time) and then asked me if I would be his girlfriend. I told him yes and so that Saturday we were to go out on a date.

         The date was a Redneck date. We went to a cattle auction! It wasn’t that romantic but it was interesting. The greatest part was when Ben, his brother, and a cousin had to get some food. When they left, his dad told me that he was glad and thanked me for becoming his son’s girlfriend because Ben finally started smiling and came out of his depression at home. I was touched and ever since smile at that memory.

         Yeah, life was good. Until my mother seemed to realize that I was graduating and turning eighteen soon. Before I tell you anymore I have to tell you about my mother. She was neglectful, verbally abusive – sometimes violent, drank all day, did drugs, and liked to fight over anything she possibly could. So she started to raise hell for me, well more hell. First I got yelled at for being in too many activities at school. Then it was because I was costing her too much. Next she yelled at me for spending too many nights with Ben (the only time he didn’t work). Finally she seemed to run out of things to say, besides the usual. But that was not the end of it.

         About a week before graduation my friends and Ben were telling me that my mom kept on calling their phones and leaving messages that as soon as I turned eighteen I was getting kicked out of the house. This would not have been a bad thing if it wasn’t for that fact that she hadn’t let me get a license and because of that did not have a job. So I spent the rest of my seventeenth year contemplating what I could do.

         Soon I graduated and could spend even more time at home with her! I was still with Ben but my mom had decided to ground me from seeing or talking to him. I was finally relieved from this loony bin when a friend called me and asked me if I would go with her for a weekend to her sisters’ to babysit. My mom had actually said yes. So my mom took me over to her house and her mom drove us to her sister’s. How great could babysitting four toddlers be that I would give up staying with my mother? Very great, actually. We had left on a Friday and too soon Sunday came, my birthday. My mom sensed this and kept calling my friend’s phone (I wasn’t allowed a cell phone) and leaving messages shouting at her, sounding drunk, about how I better get home. However I was having too much fun bowling with my friend, her sisters, and the children in celebration of one of the children’s birthdays and my own to call her back.

         Since calling my friend hadn’t worked she seemed to think that calling Ben might. So then he started calling me telling me to call my mom so that she would stop calling him at work (his uncle’s dairy farm). I explained to him about what was going on and he told me not to call her back and he would figure something out. So I finished bowling and we all went back to the apartment and took turns blowing up a kiddy pool.

         Soon he called me back letting me know that his parents said that I could move in with them and that he had been given the afternoon off. After giving him directions to the apartment I went and got my stuff around to wait for him. When he arrived we were off to Wal-Mart to pick up some totes for my things and then were off to see the Wicked Witch. We arrived at my mom’s and saw that she had a couple people over besides her “boyfriend of fourteen years” and were grilling out and lighting fireworks to entertain my little sisters in celebration for Father’s Day – not my birthday.

         She pretended to be nice to me and soon I ventured inside to my room to gather my necessities in my old school bags. Then I carried them downstairs. I went outside and nodded to Ben, who had been diverting attention with fireworks, that I was all set. He came over and we went inside to get the bags. My mom had followed us and started yelling at me, calling me names, and screaming that once I left I could never come back. Ben went out first and I followed not knowing how dumb that was until after my mom came up behind me and punched me straight in the back with all her strength.

         I kept on walking to his truck, with tears threatening to pour out from the pain as though nothing happened. However as soon as that door shut behind me they came out like a river. A few minutes later we came to his parent’s farm and he carried my bags in, with me following in pain. We told his parents and his brother what happened and then ate dinner.

         Soon it was time for bed and so his mom took me upstairs and showed me Ben’s room and bathroom… and then my room and bed. I soon was ready and went straight to sleep, as soon as I had found a comfortable spot with my back being in pain and all.

         So all in all I had a great birthday, so great that I woke up the next morning paralyzed in my back for the next two weeks...