Half a Century of Thoughts -- part two

I have a lot of mixed emotions when I look back at my childhood. On the one hand, there was incredible freedom. I was largely left to do what I wanted to do when I wanted to do it, other than going to school and being home by dark. No great hardships since I didn't dislike school and there was no one to play with after dark. Of course, I didn't feel that way about it at the time, the freedom part, much like I didn't feel anything about my ability to walk or do anything else. It just was.

I spent as little time at home as possible, most of my weekends being spent at my friends' houses.

Which is where the mixed emotions come in. My friends didn't want to come to my house anymore than I wanted to be there. Not that I really understood that at the time. Except for one friend who left crying the first time he ever tried to stay the night at my house. My (step)dad started yelling about something and scared him, and he had to go home. He never came to my house again, though I spent many, many weekends at his. I didn't get that that was the same reason none of my other friends wanted to come to my house, either, and why I always stayed at theirs.

And the freedom I had was negligence. My parents rarely knew where I was or when or if I'd be home, not that I didn't ever not show up at dusk. Unless I was spending the night with someone, but my mom, at least, always knew that because I would actually ask for permission. Of course, there was that one time... That time I ran away.

My mom knew that I ran away, since I did it because of some fight. I don't remember what happened other than that it ended with me yelling, "I'm running away and never coming back!" I made the best effort at it I could being a spur of the moment thing. I walked around the block three or four times trying to figure out where I should go. I realized fairly quickly that I couldn't go to any of my friends' houses because their moms were friends with my mom and I'd just get sent back home. Likewise, I couldn't go to my grandparents' house... though maybe I could have for a while? I don't know. I didn't try it, but it's possible they wold have let me stay. At the time, that didn't feel like an option.

[One note: When I mentioned in the previous post the "house I grew up in," that was my grandparents' house. At least, at this point. But I'm not going to explain that right now.]

In fact, it felt like I didn't have any options. So I sat down under a tree on the corner of the street I lived on so that I could think. And I thought about it for hours. So many hours that it got dark and I had come to no conclusions about where I could go, but I was determined to not go home. What was the point of running away if you just went back home? Eventually, a car came up the street and stopped next to me. The door opened and my mom growled, "Get in the car." Unfortunately, it didn't occur to me to refuse on the grounds that I had run away; I just got in the car and we drove backwards down the street to our house.

I think the "running away" thing is emblematic of my childhood. Maybe of all of GenX. Sure, my mom came after me, but she got lucky. If I had been some other kid, some kid who didn't think things through and need a plan, I might have just walked off randomly through the city and never been seen from again or, at least, not without the intervention of the police. And let me be clear, this was not one of those "teaching moments" from a sitcom where a kid declares s/he is going to run away and the parent helps said kid pack and plan until the kid realizes that running away isn't a good idea. This was my mom not caring enough to do anything about it, and it doesn't matter that she believed I wasn't really going to do it, because, clearly, she was wrong about that. If she had bothered to ever know me as a kid, she would have known that I wasn't in the habit of making idle threats. It's not like "I'm going to run away!" was a thing I said on a regular basis.

The problem here is that she didn't bother to worry about me, or even wonder about me, until it got dark and I didn't come home. She just went about her business. And my dad(step) didn't care at all. It was never mentioned, and he took no action or acknowledged that anything had happened.

The number of times I almost died as a child is appalling. I mean literally almost died. Like the time my cousin and I got stuck in what can only be called quickmud and didn't realize we were in any kind of danger until we were literally in it up to our mouths and only barely got out (because she used me as a surface and pushed me all the way under so that she could get her hands on the bank and pull herself out). Or the multiple times I was chased my water moccasins while out playing in the woods so far from anywhere that no one would have known I was dead. It physically distresses my daughter almost any time I talk about things from my childhood. Which is what made me realize that there were things wrong with my childhood. Prior to that, to me, it was all just normal.

Not to mention that my mom would just give my stuff away because she felt like it. Seriously, I would come home and stuff from my room, stuff I loved, would just be gone. It was always, "Oh, I gave that to so-and-so." She didn't have any reason; she just did it. And my wife's mom would do the same kind of thing only she would throw things away.

And the Boomers are still doing that shit, even at this very moment. Fighting to protect the most corrupt "President" (#fakepresident) of all time so that they can continue to hold onto everything. Stealing the future from their kids and grandkids so that they can continue to bloat themselves. And they don't fucking care! There's a reason that Gen X has been the first American generation to not surpass their parents in wealth and success, because Boomers are like Shelob in her cave sucking the life out of everything that gets near them.

Of course, the problem is not just the Boomers. Mostly, Gen Xers have responded just as I did when I ran away. Boomers pull up in the car and say, "Get in," and we do it. Why? Because the Boomers are in the right? No. I'm pretty sure my mom was not in the right about whatever the disagreement was. My dad(step) was never in the right and my mom only rarely. No, we do it because they're our parents. We don't even think about it, not until it's too late.

And, you know what, it's too late. Or pretty damn close to it.
And we keep letting Boomers tell us what to do.