What makes a child abandon his or her family? Perhaps it’s first a mental flight from family that causes so many to physically flee the nest. Most young people move out after graduating from high school, but quite often, they’ve left their family a long time before. At some point in development, youths decide that they are ready to take off on their own. I don’t think the excursion is merely for adventure's sake. I think it’s because of a very powerful, ambiguous fear. That fear has something to do with parents’ hopes for better for their children. Maybe when parents tell their children stories of overcoming obstacles, what they’re unconsciously teaching is disdain for the parents’ ways of coping with life.

When she was 11, my sister played this stupid game for about six months. If she came near a graveyard, she would hold her breath until past it. I don’t know where she picked the game up or why she found it so entertaining, but it drove me nuts. Pushing her thick, blonde hair out of mischievous blue eyes, she swore to me that I would be possessed if I didn’t play. I thought she was possessed because she did. The game ended abruptly in the summer of ’94 as we drove to our new home at Ft. Sam Houston in central Texas. Turning up the road to our destination, we ran right along a _ mile stretch of cemetery. I looked at Jessie and smiled. Finally, the little goofball would be forced to stop playing her stupid game. "So, do you think you can hold your breath forever?" I couldn’t resist quipping. But when we drove into the parking lot, I shut my mouth and stopped smiling.

Our new residence was a 24-foot long trailer. The off-white aluminum body rested unassumingly in an equally unassuming parking lot. Most of the barren lot consisted of empty car spaces, but tall florescent lights loomed around the edges. Despite electrical outlets, water hook-ups, and two other trailers dotting the edges, by no stretch of the imagination was it a trailer park. In all directions, the horizon seemed empty, though not physically barren. An air of quiet solitude cloaked the place. To the east and south, overgrown baseball fields explained the parking lot’s abandoned state. Across from the east baseball field, several buildings and military automobiles sat dormant. A high fence surrounded one building, while another presented the welcome face of a youth center. To the north of the lot resided the permanent bane of Jessie’s game. Signs of construction, in the form of cleared foliage and rent earth, spread to the west a short distance. New residences were in shortage on the base until such construction was complete, and thus our humble abode. To the other side of the construction area, behind a sprinkling of trees, rested Robert G. Cole Middle/High School.

The trailer, made to comfortably house two to four people, wasn’t equipped for a family of six and a big black lab. Daddy tore out the couch and set up a wooden board in the same location, halfway up three sides of the trailer. After making sure it was sturdy, the board became the most functional piece of furniture we’ve ever owned. During the day, it was the breakfast table and the couch. At night, it became a bunk bed as my brothers rolled out their sleeping bags up top, and my sister and I rolled out ours below.

The board was just one of many projects that led to dad’s reputation as a famous scrimper. When he was little, his brothers called him "swamp fox" because he loved to muck around in garbage for hidden "jewels." Over the years, countless garage sale or curbside trash items have found their way to our various homes. It has not been due to lack of money for nice stuff, but because dad hated to spend unnecessarily. I find his financial sense in myself sometimes, but I often ignore it or push it aside. Do I do this because I have the money to spend? Not really. I think it’s because of another principle my father often speaks of, but one he never really lives. Daddy always says, "work hard and play harder." Years of familial chaos and success in academia have earned me a little self-spoiling.

Many battles ensued over where we slept, but in ’94, I was still taller than all my siblings and could wield a modicum of power. The floor was by far the more comfortable space to rest, so Jessie and I refused to let go of that small privilege. About one foot away from our pseudo-bunk beds, the kitchen started its four-foot girth, and 2 inches later, the bathroom made a modest entrance. Pulling aside a plastic accordion door on the other side of the bathroom revealed a mini-bedroom. A twin and a half-sized bed took up most of the room and left about two extra feet of open space. Mom, dad, and Pepper (the lab) confiscated the bedroom.

Mom worked hard to brighten up our trailer. She’s always doing her best to not let us know the extent of a bad situation. One Christmas, she went so far as to pawn her engagement ring as well as her dead mother’s engagement ring so that she could have plenty of toys under the tree. She’d rather go years without buying new underwear than let us go without new school clothes. We were spoiled in our early years, though it took a while to realize it. A vision of mom several months before we moved to Texas comes to mind. She perched on the side of the tub, her feet soaking in hot water after a double shift at a local resort. She worked herself sore and sick so that I would be able to go to Europe with my chorale that summer.

Christmas lights soon decorated the outside of the trailer. A TV/VCR combo sat upon the mini-fridge, though the channel reception was poor. We decided that it was because TV signals don’t like to pass through aluminum trailers. Inviting curtains graced the windows, and the 3 feet of kitchen counter space was always kept clean. Mom ran a tidy ship, so we folded our beds up every morning. There wasn’t much she could do about the dip or the clog, though.

The dip and the clog. I used to think sinkholes were only a geological formation. Not so, as our trailer developed a condition known as "old trailer falls apart," in which a one foot square section of the kitchen floor sinks by about two inches. We never figured out what caused the depression, but we made sure to gingerly step around it. The clog wasn’t as easy to ignore. To this day, the fault is blamed on feminine products, though the females in the family are quite sure a washcloth dropped from male hands caused it. About mid-October, the toilet began to clog almost daily. Mom and dad plunged, prodded, wire-hangered, and Drano-ed the toilet, all to no permanent avail. We settled on limiting each person to 4 sheets of toilet paper and to a general odorous emission from the seat.

It wasn’t until mid-November that we really noticed the lack of heated water at the lot. Texas isn’t a horribly cold state in the winter, but the temperature does drop significantly. And if already cool water doesn’t have much sun to warm it up in its passage from hook-up to sink, a body is in for unpleasantness. Bathing became a horrible nightmare. Mom would heat up a few pots of water and pour it into the tub for the boys. It was quite difficult, however, to do this for all six of us. Sponge baths became a ritual, as did splitting headaches from hanging your head under the tub faucet to wash your hair in freezing cold water. When I was feeling brave, I would take a deep breath, climb in the shower, and turn on the icy torrent. By leaning my body forward and gingerly tilting my head back, I could give my skin time to lie to itself. Mentally, I held tight to an image of Hawaii and then bit back a squeal as I put my whole body under the water. It took about a week to work up the courage to shower, but by that time I could almost forget how painful it was.

Bedding down for the night taught us all teamwork skills. In a space 24 feet long, either everyone goes to sleep at the same time, or no one sleeps at all. The most horrific experience in not sleeping occurred one night after my youngest brother, Brenndan, successfully weaseled the floor spot out of me. With my other brother, Shawn, I laid up top silently missing the softer floor. At Shawn’s cry of pain, we all woke to discover that a sea of ants had found our board much more appealing than the outside of the trailer. We squished a few bodies, and mom hosed down the rest with ant spray. Shortly after we’d all settled back down, a wicked odor reached my nose. As I prepared to kick a nearby body, my siblings, roused by the smell, began to complain about the horrendous scent. Up from the rear of the trailer came mom, dad, and Pepper. We soon realized that a skunk had settled beneath our trailer. None of us were brave enough to face the skunk, so mom’s solution was to fire away at the smell with purple Dimetapp smelling air freshner. The vomiting reflex that Eau de Ant Spray-Dimetapp-Skunk elicits is formidable.

"That’s not what I’m really upset about, though. What upsets me the most is the loss of a dream, a future. I can see the plans I had for my life falling apart… Anyway, my life sucks; I’m gonna end up 40 years old, alone, and stuck in a dead end job I hate. Who cares?" These words disturb me as I look back at an entry I made on November 5, 1994 in my rarely kept diary. Over the years, I’ve forgotten how depressed and angry my trailer experiences made me feel.

I usually attribute episodes of child rebellion against our living quarters to my sister. The most disturbing moment happened one afternoon when my mom picked Jessie and I up from school. As we approached the trailer, Jessie ducked down in our car and asked mom to circle around the parking lot like she was lost. Two people Jessie knew from school were walking past on their way to the youth center. Feeling hurt for mom, I yelled at Jessie for being so rude.

My unhappiness hit its low on my 16^th birthday. Society convinces little girls that something magical will happen on their 16^th. Long gone are the days of coming-out balls, but for some reason we still cling to the idea of the "Sweet Sixteen." To hold true to that idea, I was willing to go as far as having a party in the parking lot outside the trailer. Christmas lights, snacks, sodas, games, maybe even a band—it could happen! We didn’t have the money for anything like that, so instead we went as a family to see "The Santa Clause" with Tim Allen. I didn’t choose the movie, but when mom and dad suggested it, I agreed.

This was a year or two before I learned to speak up for myself.

Dwelling on my plight throughout the movie, I worked myself into a morose snit. I sat there in the dark, fuming because my parents had made several poor decisions that resulted in our living situation. Tim Allen earned my ire for his hollow gags when he had the honor of being part of my birthday celebration. It also irritated me that my goofy siblings came along, but I couldn’t invite any friends. How had my life changed so much in four months?

When we came back to the trailer for cakes and gifts, I had hopes that some beautiful box would redeem the night for me. I sat on the floor while Jessie, eager as only little girls know how to be, squirmed next to me. The boys peered down from the board above. Everybody started to sing "Happy Birthday to you…!" Mom smiled in anticipation as she lit the candles on the cake and gently handed it to me. I made the same wish I’d made every year before and every year since (though I can’t say what it is because that would jinx it). I smiled back and blew out the candles. When I opened my gifts, I felt a soreness in my eyes and the welling of tears. Mom thought and still thinks, I hope, that I was touched by the gifts. For my Sweet Sixteen, I watched a goofy Christmas movie and received a sweater, a turtleneck, and a heart shaped necklace. Those were tears of self-pity.

We were still at the bottom of a long waiting list for housing when mid-January rolled around. After work one day, my dad asked me to come outside and walk with him. It was crisp outside—gray as on the day we first came to the lot. Dad stood there in his army recruiter’s uniform, handsome and imposing in the way dads always are before you find out that they’re human too. Some of the words are a blur now, but the feelings are still vivid. My dad asked me if I wanted to move back to Virginia to live with my grandmother. He said he’d already talked to my old high school, and they would let me come back on one condition. I had to be there in a week.

My stomach jumped up and my heart trembled. "Try not to look happy," I thought, while the tears started to fall. Guilt and anxiety and hope mingled as I choked on my response. How could I make a decision so important so fast? How could I leave my family behind to pursue my own dreams? How could I devastate my parents by essentially telling them that they weren’t providing enough to satisfy me?

How could I not go?

When you talk of yourself, you have to put aside embarrassment and pride. As I wrote this article, I only thought of how to best depict the pain of the experience and the love I have for my family. It was only after I finished that I realized I didn’t really want anybody to read it. Suddenly, I was concerned what my readers would think of me. Would I sound like a whiny brat? Would they call me trailer trash? Even more, I was concerned that my parents might someday see the story. I still can’t bear that. I love them too much to be willing to hurt them. So, it was with dread that I turned in my work. The warm reception it received from my fellows was comforting and reaffirming, but I still felt naked in a room full of virtual strangers.

Perhaps it was lingering fear from writing my first article that plagued my later work. It seemed as if for each article that came afterward, I couldn’t reach the same quality of writing that I had in my first article. In the second paper, suddenly I was given the responsibility of revealing someone else. I’m often more concerned about the feelings of others than I am of myself, and so I held back in my second article. I didn’t delve too deeply, didn’t stop at one place and say what I really thought about it. I set myself up with my third article when I choose a significant figure on campus and then told him I would give him a copy of the article when I was done. Suddenly, I was no longer writing for a class or for an objective audience. I was writing for a subject, one I didn’t want to offend. Again, I gently brushed over the person and spent more time painting a halo than a journalistic work of art.

The last article in my series helped me remember what it was I’d discovered in my first article. I felt more free to talk about the person, about her experiences and what they might mean. Of course, this was probably because after my interviews, she would be several states away. I didn’t have to write for her or for anybody who knew her. The fear was removed. And yet, the paper still didn’t feel as pure as my first. Maybe you can only ever be really honest about yourself.

When I sat down to revise my first article, I discovered that I felt that any major changes would destroy the whole feeling of the piece. Making only small changes, I left the essence the same. I started to change the ending, to add a little more about what happened afterward as one classmate suggested. Then I deleted it all and left my little cliffhanger. That was the way the story was supposed to end. And a story usually knows itself better than the author does. I just have to remember to trust the story.