Rules of the House

Growing up in a house with strict parents, I often found rules to be messy.  Too controlling.  My worst nightmare.  At home, I was expected to abide by the schedule set by my parents.  By the time I was ten, my home life was a constant drudgery of dullness.  If I didn’t follow the schedule set for me exactly, I would be punished.  Usually, I was sent to my room without dinner, but there was a reason I stashed food in my dresser.  My parents never seemed to notice food was missing or at least they didn’t mention it to me.   

School was my main outlet for getting out of a strict schedule and I played this to my advantage. As soon as I could drive, I joined the swim team, became the manager of the girls’ basketball team and got a part-time job just so I had an excuse to be somewhere else.  I kept waiting for my parents to figure out what I was doing, but they never brought it up. Never mentioned anything about how I was suddenly never home anymore. As the days passed, I slowly experimented with not coming home at all. Whatever the reason controlling nature, I never got the chance to find out. On an unannounced visit home to get some of my belongings, I found my childhood home void of anything but a few boxes of my belongings. My parents had vanished. Disappeared. And had left me to fend for myself.