a life of learning and independence

well, now it is all happening. on wednesday i took my truck into my sisters work to have it looked at. i was set to be there at 9:am, which is currently early for me, and i almost made it on time. it was the first time in a while that i had somewhere to be and a specific time to be there. one of the things that i want to work on is not being a slave to time and schedules. so, i was late and i didnt fret too much about it.

i dropped my truck off to them and told them the various problems, which included: interior dash lights not working, my left turn signal not working, my power steering fluid leaking, i asked them to look at my driveshaft and assess the job the hillbilly did on it, and my engine was loud, i wanted them to tell me why.

i took my sisters car and just planned to drive around and see things, like i wanted to do on the first day when my truck failed to work on me. i was in cedar lake indiana, which was where i spend my childhood. so, i started seeing some sights and for soem reason it revolved around the various schools that i attended. this was probably because right across the street from where my sister works is the first school that i attended. holy name catholic school.

catholic school, really?

i have never been religious and i have no memories of my family being religious, any of them for any reasons. sure, as a youngster i went to church for easter a couple times, but i never got to eat any wafers or drink any wine. i only went to this catholic school for first and second grade, i think. there is a solid memory from it though, and that is because of the innovation of portable video cameras. in the second grade i was in a chirstmas show at the school and my mom still has the video of it. i sang "over the hills and through the woods" with an unknown little girl that also went to that school. i would like nothing more than to find out who she was and where she is now. the only reason why i stopped going there was because the school ran out of money and had to go out of business, so all of its students went to a local public school.

for me, i went next to douglas macarthur elementary school. i took a ride over by that, there are some memories there. like, in the playground around my 10th birthday i was playing firewroks with some friends and one of the fireworks jumped into my shoe and burnt a hole through my foot all the way to my bone. or, just around the corner was the house where i first remember smoking pot. then some things started flooding back into me, like where the homes of people that i remember from my school days were.

i drove by the homes of bob and steve jefferson, kori stark, jeremy jackson, hannah carnell, chris chandler, tim tucker, brei larson, nicole wernes, and a number of other homes whose people i dont remember their full names. and the thing that struck me the most was change. alot of the houses had changed so much that it was hard to know if what i remembered was actually right. some places hadnt changed at all.

i went by the house that i spent my childhood in and it had been changed so much that it wasnt even worth taking a picture or looking twice to keep it as a memory. my sister lives just across the street from that house so i stopped in there and hung out with her boyfriend justin for awhile, then i kept on.

continuing with my school memories, i went up to crown point to try to find the middle school that i attended, called taft. i couldnt find it. and the crown point high school i had went too has since been torn down. i went by it anyway and they had built a new school where the old one was. it looked similar but it wasnt the same. i walked around the downtown crown point square, and photographed the lunch spot that my friend frances and i used to hang out at, chicagos.

i still had plenty of time before i had to get back to my sisters work, so i followed the old school route and went on the griffith high school, where i spent most of my high school years and made some friends that will always be with me. i also drove around by the various homes of the people i knew here. since it is fresher than my elementary school folks i knew where more houses were and i am not going to list all of the places i went. but i went by all of the house of the friends that were closest to me there.

and i was just overcome with how much things change. not just places, but people. relationships with people, how the grow and die or creak with age. i want to reconnect with as many people as possible, it is hard sometimes, becasue the changes can just be too great to sustain anything current. oh well, i have never been the greatest person anyway.

eventually my sister called me back. yay! i went over to her workplace and talked with the folks working on my truck about what is going on. they had fixed my electrical issues and told me that the leaks werent very bad, but fixing them would be cost prohibitive. the driveshaft looked fine to them and the loud engine noise was from my muffler, which had a very large hole in it. he told me that it would be cheaper and quicker to take my truck to a muffler place to be fixed. they were just finishing up my electrical stuff and i owed them $55.

i was okay with that. my sister encouraged me to call my dad and have him pay for it, but i had returned the gifts my family got me for my birthday and now had about $250 to spend on my truck. so it was kind of like he was paying for it anyway. becky went home and sat there reading my book until they had finsihed their work. then i drove back to my dads house, there is a muffler place by him and i stopped there on the way home, it was too late tonight, but i planned to go there first thing the next morning.

i went back to the house and my dad and bobbie and i chatted about my brother for awhile, he has gone awol again and that sucks. then we sat down and watched a movie, but were interrupted by the washing machine overflowing. after we cleaned that up we finished watching kill bill 2 and i went to bed.

as promised, i got up early again this morning and went to the muffler shop. i dropped my truck off there and went to read my book. when they got a look at my truck, they put on a new muffler and exhaust. it was much cheaper than i thought it would be, $100. yes! i was very happy to hear that and paid them with a smile on my face, today was a shaping up to be good.

with my muffler fixed, it was time to go get my emissions tested. i drove out to markham illinois, the closest testing station (about an hour away), and got in line. when my turn came i pulled up and the guy told me that my truck didnt need to be tested, i explained that i needed it tested to mail it out of state, he couldnt deal with me and sent me into the office. i talked to the ladies in there and they got me rolling. i had to pay $20 for the test and got back in line.

i was nervous. my truck is from 1987 and i had no idea if it would pass or not. i figured it would because it is a good little truck, but with newer emissions rules it was up in the air. most of the cars in there were in and out in a minute or so. the guy was checking mine for about five minutes and i was sweating, what if it didnt pass? what the hell would i do then? when the test finished and he said i could get back in i asked him if i passed and he said he didnt know! that didnt help, i felt for sure it was a no.

but then the paper printed out and it was a pass! i was so totally releived, everything was going my way. the things that i had built up in my mind as hard were getting easier and easier, now it was just a matter of time. i need to get my registration papers in the mail and then fill them out and send them back to oregon and wait for my stickers to get back to me. it may keep me here for a little while longer, but that wont be so bad.

being here, it kind of feels like i am not even on my journey any longer, like i am in some vortex that strips me of all knowledge of being in constant movement. maybe it is just because i have been pretty static for the last month or more. i dont, certainly the days arent as interesting and instead of exploring i am content with relaxing...eerily like it was before i left portland.

the house i lived in during my relapse

last night my dad and i talked, mostly about the rest of the family. i moved away and became my own person on august 17, 1999. in the spring of 2001 i relapsed until the fall of 2002. i worked for my dad and lived in a small house on the outskirts of gary. when i left then i moved to portland and my entire life changed. my ideas and the things i beleived started morphing into an active reality and i really was independent. i have never asked my family for any money or other support through my years, my dad used to send me large sums of money on my birthday but i even turned those away.

last night he told me about the state of dependency the rest of my siblings experience as reality. all three of them have their housing subsidized by my dad, my sisters also have college and their vehicles paid for, and at least one of them receives an allowance. i was shocked to hear this stuff, i didnt need to hear it, but i asked if he could send them all to a school to learn how to grow up and be independent. i couldnt help feeling a little bit jealous because when i dont have something i just do without and struggle, they just ask my dad.

and listening to him talk about it, the jealousy quickly passed and then i just felt sad for my dad. he will probably work until he dies and his kids will continue to vampire away as much as they can because they feel entitled to it. and he is too much of a pushover to say no. sad sad sad. i was kind of hoping that he would offer me some money before i left or give me some for my birthday (because right now i could use a boost, that is part of the reason i am wintering here so long) but after last night i have to refuse any money he offers me. that sucks.

anyway, today i get to go see the family i dont remember at all. my moms. yay.