Nobody ever pulls the seams 'round here...

Quick note: Munchkin got home yesterday from her Caribbean sailing vacation. She is really tan and cuter than ever and had a great time. And the people that took her report that she is just the most fun kid in the world to have around:-) OK, done bragging!!! Back to the story...

[This is part three of a long story. Read part 1 and part 2 first.]

I told Sam maybe two days later. He didn’t really seem to believe me at first, and told me that I could take more time to decide if I wanted to. I tried to tell him that I had made up my mind, but he didn’t really take the “no” as being permanent. I also told my mother, who completely hit the roof and called me all sorts of hideous names. Most everyone else I knew seemed to concur with her, although they were nicer about it (some people were very supportive, and I always remember them.)

The second significant event was about a week and a half later. My mother’s husband and I never got along (that is Munchkin’s father). Not sure why, but I didn’t like him and he didn’t like me. Not really a bad guy, I guess, and he was the one who finally made my mother stop drinking, for which he gets credit. But we never got along…and at this point, we rarely ever spoke.

So, it was out of character one day for him to come into my bedroom to talk to me. My mother was in the shower, and he came in quickly (I was reading, I think.) He handed me an envelope and said “I am taking your mother away for the weekend. Leave your sister at her Grandmother’s house, she is expecting her. This is all I can give you, but take it and go to Arizona. I will deal with your mother.” The envelope had $1,000 in it (or maybe $1,500…I forget).

Keep in mind, before then I still hadn’t figured out exactly how I was getting to Arizona, but I was determined to go. I guess I was planning to sneak out of the house one night and get on a bus. He very intentionally scheduled a weekend away for about a week before classes were to begin, which gave me all of the cover I needed to pack up and get going. And the money was awfully useful, as well…so I guess in the final analysis he did three great things for me: made my mother quit drinking, gave me Munchkin and sprung me from home.

This leads to event #3, which was that Friday night. I had reserved a U-Haul and had everything I owned packed up and ready to leave in the morning. I had my last meal with the BFFs, and then I sat down with Munchkin and told her everything…that I was leaving and wouldn’t see her for a while and that Mom was going to be really mad at me, but that she shouldn’t worry because I was going to be alright and I would always come back to see her.

The knock on the window came at about 1:00am. It was Sam, ring in hand, begging me to reconsider. I didn’t tell him I was leaving, I just told him that it was late, that I didn’t want to talk to him then, and that I would talk to him the next day. Yes, I owed him more than sneaking away without saying good-bye, I know. I never felt good about it…none of us are perfect.

I was up and out the door really early. I had a really tearful goodbye with Munchkin, and then I was on my way, terrified, liberated, scared, exhilarated and excited. I can’t really describe the feelings of that trip. I was a wreck…I felt terrible about the way I left Sam, and about running away from home. I also knew I was going to a very strange place, with all kinds of strange people and an environment unlike anything I had ever known. I cried almost the whole way there. (This post covers what happened when I got there).

I didn’t go home for a year and a half after that. My mother told me that I was not welcome at Thanksgiving or Christmas, and I spent the summer at school (more on that in a bit). It wasn’t until the following Christmas, fully 16 months after I had left, that I finally returned home.

Meanwhile, Sam called me at home all morning and got no answer. So he came over to the house, and found that I wasn’t there…eventually he went over to BFFb’s house to see if he knew where I was (BFFg was there, too). They told him and he blew up...at me, but mostly at BFFb for “selling him out” and trying to ruin his life (he either knew or strongly suspected that he was the person that finally convinced me not to marry him).

I wasn’t there, so I don’t know exactly what happened, but it wasn’t pretty. They got into a fight that immediately got extremely serious. BFFg couldn’t stop them, and they eventually beat each other seriously enough to require both of them to go to the hospital. They didn’t speak for over four years.

[To be continued]