I’ve learned a lot of things since I got to college. One of those things is that I still don’t care about sports, even though I go to a school with a real sports team. Another is that Calculus sucks, and it was not entirely my high school teacher’s fault (though he still holds some blame). But the most important thing I’ve learned is to never accept a challenge to post to your website every day for a month when that month just happens to be the month of finals.
Goodness, I’ve got a ton more of these English journals to do, so I’ll make this post brief by copy pasting in one of the one’s I’ve finished. What else am I going to do with them? Let the professor read them and grade me for completion? What a waste.
Rick
I’ve known my latest stepfather, Rick, for about seven years. Yes, I do say latest because I had one before him, and, of course, before that, there was my real father, who I didnÕt even know existed until I was around eight years old. My stepfather Tren makes for a whole range of interesting stories. IÕll just say that one memory comes to mind that defines Tren more than any other Š the night he threatened to kill my mother.
I was sleeping over at my friendÕs house that night. I remember my friendÕs mother (I donÕt even remember his name for sure… I think it was Brett…) coming downstairs and telling me that my mom was coming to pick me up and I needed to pack my things. The next thing I knew I was in the back seat of the car along with a some clothing and my two sisters, all of which was hastily thrown in, driving away from town. It was a somewhat stressful night, to say the least, so by the time I was ten, I had experienced two fathers, and neither had done very well in my books.
When I first met Rick, I was as excited as my siblings were. He seemed like a great guy to us. I guess thatÕs not really hard to imagine when you think about what I just said of the previous stepfather, but we liked him. He took us out for ice cream and other fun things while he was dating our mom. He even wanted to be sure we were okay with him asking our mom to marry him. It seemed the third time was certainly going to be the charm for my mom.
We had gone a year or two without a father figure by that point, and Rick seemed like a great fit. We figured we’d love to have him as our stepfather; we were quite happy to hold up a sign declaring that fact as our mother’s answer to his proposal. On the one hand, I think we were right; Rick was a decent stepfather (though I have little personal experience to base that on). On the other hand, he certainly could have been better.
In fact, by the time I was old enough to leave home, I couldn’t get out fast enough Š literally. I left town right after graduation. Not the day after, but the night of, I left directly after the ceremony. I had arranged to move with out of town and live with my grandmother over the summer before I left the state for college. I was really that tired of living under the same roof as him.
LetÕs not get ahead of ourselves though, thereÕs a good six or seven years between the two extremes of practically begging him to be our stepfather and running away from him as fast as possible. The transformation was slow, but certainly definite. I do believe some of it was probably just normal teenage angst, but I feel a larger portion falls on RickÕs own actions.
After the marriage, Rick took no time in getting to work on annoying us, or as he probably thought, establishing himself as the father. Within a few weeks, we were told that we were no longer allowed to watch The Simpsons or The X-Files, which had both been some of our favorites because they werenÕt appropriate.
We then moved into our new home and he spent as much time complaining that we werenÕt working hard enough to move things in as he did moving things in himself. I remember that I happened to have a nasty headache that day, but he was absolutely certain that I was making it up to get out of working. As a result Š donÕt ask me how this works Š he decided to declare television off-limits as a Sunday activity. The fighting had begun, albeit sporadically. I remember thinking by even that early point that maybe Rick wasnÕt the cool stepfather we thought heÕd be.
