I had a really intense dream last night. The summer after high school was really rough for me. I was working 12 to 16 hour days at this horrible landscaping company. Had to be there at 6am, and I'd often be sent out on deliveries until 8 or later at night. I'd show back up and they would have already locked the yard up, so I'd have to park the delivery truck in the customer lot and then fill out my time sheet in the morning because I couldn't get to the clock.
My mom was dating this guy who was a complete loser. Pill addict. He fell off a roof and broke his shoulder, and refused to do any PT because "it hurts". Well no shit dude, but now you have no range of motion and you're addicted to pain killers. He would stay up all night long on my mom's computer in Yahoo chat rooms, there were karaoke rooms, and he keep us up all night singing these shitty western songs at the top of his lungs into the mic. He picked a fight with me once because I ate the last of some ice cream that was in the freezer. He'd also spend all day in bed, chain smoking and pissing himself because it hurt too much to get up to go to the bathroom.
My mom has a habit of martyring herself and acting like she's putting up with this shitty situation "for us kids." Like I am supposed to feel bad for a grown ass woman who can't get and hold a job in order to keep a roof over her head. She still does it, her current boyfriend, man I could tell you some stories. And if you say something she acts like she can't survive on her own, and she's putting up with it because she has no other options. Its like lady, you have a college degree, maybe if you got a better job than your shitty under the table bookkeeping job you'd be able to get your own place.
Anyways, I digress. So that summer after high school, I ate that ice cream, and mom's boyfriend literally got up in my face and started swinging at me. I'm a big guy. I'm 6'4" and at the time I was around 220lbs of lean muscle. But I don't fight. I don't like to fight. And he swung at me, I blocked him, and he took me down to the ground with some shitty wrestling move. My mom tried to gaslight me into apologizing to the piece of shit for eating a couple scoops of some fucking IGA brand chocolate chip ice cream that was in the freezer. Didn't have his name on it. I refused. I told her it was me or him, one of us needed to go.
Of course that didn't end up happening, he made a big show of walking down the street while my mom wailed about "how am I going to keep a roof over our heads without him here to help!" because his couple hundred a month he got in disability was a real big deal apparently.
I had contemplated leaving then. I had even started packing, but I felt guilty leaving my little sister.
But in my dream last night, I did. I packed my clothes and a few other things up in the back of my car and just started driving west.
I'm almost 40 now, I have a very happy marriage and wonderful children who I would never treat like that. But part of me wishes I had taken that opportunity to get the fuck out of Southern Ohio. I could be living on the Oregon coast or somewhere way nicer than here.
I grew a pair of balls after that, though. I went to college in the fall and my sister called me, she was getting off the school bus, and mom's boyfriend was high on pain pills, and thought she was a robber and shot at her with a crossman C02 air pistol (because of course he had a felony and couldn't get a real gun, thank god). I drove home, took it from him and told him if I ever heard he did anything like that ever again I'd beat him to death with his shitty little air gun.