Why I Moved Out on My Own (cont.)

Life was bearable until my sisters moved away. They are 5, 7, and 9 years older than me, and they all married young (mostly to escape my parents’ house). So by the age of 13, I was the only child left at home.

The hard silences, constant lectures, threats of punishments, and isolation overwhelmed me. I had friends at school, but having friends to the house was not encouraged. My parents didn’t like to drive me anywhere (unless it was a sports practice that they approved of), and I couldn’t ride my bike at night, so my house was a jail. It was a hundred different things that led to my feeling like a prisoner of war. I felt like I would explode if I stayed.

At about that time, I started dreaming of moving out at the age of 16. I’m not even sure why I chose 16, how I knew that that age would make it a little easier to survive on my own. But as I lived my life in a spider’s web of rules, punishment, and derision, I began to think about how I could escape that web. I saved up babysitting money, started taking extra classes so that I could graduate from high school a year early, and gritted my teeth. I eventually bought a used car from my older sister, and at the age of 16, I stuffed that Nissan Sentra full of my clothes and books, and I left home.
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