Imagine being right out of high school, getting fired from your first real job, and finding out your parents are separating.
So let’s start at the first point. I graduated high school on an average note. I didn’t excel, but I didn’t do poorly either. My circle of friends was very little, as I wasn’t into the same thing as everyone else. I didn’t drink, do drugs, or do any sort of partying. I also wasn’t originally from the small town so everyone already had their groups of friends based off of their connections their parents had. After school most days I would go straight to work at the drug store down the road and then home afterwards. I worked at the drug store for nearly 2 years. During those 2 year I was a very obedient employee and took on almost any shift they asked me to. Shortly before I graduated the minimum wage for people 18 years and older went up to $11.00/hour (I was still 17 at the time – important detail). The owner gave the the raise to 11 not knowing I wasn’t 18 yet. Many of the other employees were occasional workers as they were all in college or university. After I graduated I started working more and one shift I got pulled in and they told me that I had been stealing from them. They informed me that I had given someone’s points to another customer who had a points card after he said he didn’t have one. Right there they fired me for ‘stealing’. It was embarrassing but also a relief, as I mentioned before I was a very obedient employee and was being taken advantage of. I think that the actual reason of getting fired was that they were paying me significantly more than they were suppose to and that they thought that I would be going off to college or university in the following months. At the end of it all it didn’t affect me too much as I already was working at a grocery store as well. My hours went up there and life went on.
Next came my parents separating. I looked up to my parents. I always thought they had their shit together. I never heard them say they were in need of money or they ever wanted of something. They taught us early on that if we wanted something that wasn’t a necessity that we needed to get a job and pay for it ourselves. Good lesson – in my opinion. Truth is money wasn’t the problem. They were. My dad got so involved in his job that he forgot that he had a family and was always grumpy, nasty and didn’t want to do anything. My mom was addicted to facebook, she was always behind a screen talking to everyone else.
For a long period of time we had a woman staying in our house. Her and her husband were divorcing and they would alternate weeks at their home for the kids. The weeks she stayed at our house was usually a hectic one. She was either crying over multiple men, complaining, or flirting with my dad. Right from the get go I didn’t like her flirting and her obnoxious behaviour. My mom shrugged it off like nothing because it was her best friend. As my dad got more miserable my mom would invite her over more often to make my dad happy (he enjoyed her company and the flirting). As the year went on my parents became more distant but still made it functional.
The day it all happened was a day I was working. My parents were gone away for the weekend. I came home from work to their car in the driveway, my initial thought was maybe they were trying to catch me in the act of something I wasn’t suppose to be doing (as mentioned above, I’m pretty square so that thought quickly evaporated). When I walk into the house I saw my dad in the living room and I asked him what he was doing. His very direct answer of my mother leaving him threw me off. I had an idea of what was happening. Mom constantly on Facebook smiling behind a screen, dad and ****** always happy around each other … affairs. So naturally I was upset, really upset. My mother was still 3 hours away doing : who knows what.
Shortly after finding out I called my mother to ask what was happening and if it was because of the man she was talking to via Facebook. She acted insulted and was upset I would make that accusation. I dropped it. Later in the day my mom called my dad upset and wanted to be picked up. So he drove 3 hours 2 more times to get her and come home. It was really rocky for a while, so I kept my distance. More and more information came to surface which was quite disturbing and very ‘soap opera’-ish. (Stories for another time)
My parents managed to ‘Make it work’ and planned some things to do together to create an exciting life again.
My life 