For cAtdraco
This is my entry for The Year Game. I was given the year 1996.
In January of 1996 I was living with my mother again in Ava Missouri, after having graduated from the Job Corps. Christmas had gone well, Mum was getting ready to move to a better house and I was working at my first job as a certified Nursing Assistant in the local elderly home. The job was pretty terrible, even though I had done well in my practicals I was floundering under the system. The home was understaffed and the internal politics were disgraceful. After a particularly horrid string of incidences, where I was made to look incompetent so that the son of my supervising LPN could look good, as well as being denied the time off I needed to help my mother move to that better house I gave my notice.
I had earned enough money in the Job Corps to visit my Dad in Oregon anyways and I had the check in my hand at the end of February. I flew out of Kansas City on the 7th of March and while I was mostly happy something was bothering me. I had a boyfriend at the time, my first really serious one. We had met in the Job Corps and although we lived in different cities, had managed to keep things going after we both left the Center. We had even had a nice weekend in February, for our 'graduation' ceremony (staying over night in Poplar Bluff, dinner and a movie) but when I called to see if he would be saying good bye at the airport for my visit West, he never answered the phone. It hurt my feelings of course but I put it down to something practical, like he had to work an extra shift or maybe the family was doing something out of town. I was excited to be going home though and enjoyed my flight fully as I really do like to travel.
The plan was to visit Dad and scope out job prospects, I wasn't fully intending to stay in Oregon at that time. That plan went tit's up about two weeks in to my visit. I called the BF's house just to check up on things and have a natter as he had been 'working' a lot. His step-father answered the phone and was very nice to me. He then proceeded to tell me exactly what my Bf had been up too. Apparently he had seven other girlfriends ( O,O ), each in a different suburb and his parents were at their wits end trying to deal with him.
The step father felt that it was only fair that I be told the truth as I did have prospects and I seemed to be doing something with myself rather than being a teenage fucktard. He answered all my questions very openly and patiently for over an hour. He also rather guiltily admitted that he had urged the BF and his mum to explain things much earlier than that day and that if his wife caught wind of our conversation she'd be pissed off. That particular admission told me everything the step-father had said that day was true rather then being some weird ass ploy. I was shattered.
Dad was very good to me through that, he was working swing shift at the time so we had lots of late night convo's when he got home around midnight. He would also get up early and take me around to look for work as I didn't have a car yet. It turned out that my certifications from the State of Missouri as a CNA, a RTA, and an MCW wouldn't be enough to land me a job (for the curious that's nursing assistant, Restorative therapy aide and Medical Clerical worker). I would have to pay, out of my own pocket, to be re-certified against Oregon's boards. Dad and I talked things over, being re-certified as a CNA would have taken 6 months alone.
Dad had also realized by then that the time I spent growing up in Missouri had been less then ideal. He felt I should take some time off and then try college. We spent a lot of time together over the summer, rebonding. I swam every morning while Dad slept off work and did quiet chores, then we would go off on errands or we would stay up very late on short fishing trips. I loved night fishing with him, sitting there in the dark just being together and waiting for that tell-tail jiggle. Some time in July I started dating someone else and as fall rolled around, shifted from my Dad's flat into the new BF's.
I also got my very first car in August. Dad realized I needed to commute to school rather than use public transit so he put it to the family. In case I've never mentioned my paternal nana had seven husbands, only number seven out lived her. It was Grandad Harvey that passed the Chevy Citation to me. It was a way of giving me a piece of Nana as well as admitting that he was too old to drive. I had missed the deadline for getting in to College that year so as fall passed to winter I settled into a new domestic routine and began weekly therapy to undo some of the damage I had suffered over the previous decade.
This was 1996 for me in a nutshell.
In January of 1996 I was living with my mother again in Ava Missouri, after having graduated from the Job Corps. Christmas had gone well, Mum was getting ready to move to a better house and I was working at my first job as a certified Nursing Assistant in the local elderly home. The job was pretty terrible, even though I had done well in my practicals I was floundering under the system. The home was understaffed and the internal politics were disgraceful. After a particularly horrid string of incidences, where I was made to look incompetent so that the son of my supervising LPN could look good, as well as being denied the time off I needed to help my mother move to that better house I gave my notice.
I had earned enough money in the Job Corps to visit my Dad in Oregon anyways and I had the check in my hand at the end of February. I flew out of Kansas City on the 7th of March and while I was mostly happy something was bothering me. I had a boyfriend at the time, my first really serious one. We had met in the Job Corps and although we lived in different cities, had managed to keep things going after we both left the Center. We had even had a nice weekend in February, for our 'graduation' ceremony (staying over night in Poplar Bluff, dinner and a movie) but when I called to see if he would be saying good bye at the airport for my visit West, he never answered the phone. It hurt my feelings of course but I put it down to something practical, like he had to work an extra shift or maybe the family was doing something out of town. I was excited to be going home though and enjoyed my flight fully as I really do like to travel.
The plan was to visit Dad and scope out job prospects, I wasn't fully intending to stay in Oregon at that time. That plan went tit's up about two weeks in to my visit. I called the BF's house just to check up on things and have a natter as he had been 'working' a lot. His step-father answered the phone and was very nice to me. He then proceeded to tell me exactly what my Bf had been up too. Apparently he had seven other girlfriends ( O,O ), each in a different suburb and his parents were at their wits end trying to deal with him.
The step father felt that it was only fair that I be told the truth as I did have prospects and I seemed to be doing something with myself rather than being a teenage fucktard. He answered all my questions very openly and patiently for over an hour. He also rather guiltily admitted that he had urged the BF and his mum to explain things much earlier than that day and that if his wife caught wind of our conversation she'd be pissed off. That particular admission told me everything the step-father had said that day was true rather then being some weird ass ploy. I was shattered.
Dad was very good to me through that, he was working swing shift at the time so we had lots of late night convo's when he got home around midnight. He would also get up early and take me around to look for work as I didn't have a car yet. It turned out that my certifications from the State of Missouri as a CNA, a RTA, and an MCW wouldn't be enough to land me a job (for the curious that's nursing assistant, Restorative therapy aide and Medical Clerical worker). I would have to pay, out of my own pocket, to be re-certified against Oregon's boards. Dad and I talked things over, being re-certified as a CNA would have taken 6 months alone.
Dad had also realized by then that the time I spent growing up in Missouri had been less then ideal. He felt I should take some time off and then try college. We spent a lot of time together over the summer, rebonding. I swam every morning while Dad slept off work and did quiet chores, then we would go off on errands or we would stay up very late on short fishing trips. I loved night fishing with him, sitting there in the dark just being together and waiting for that tell-tail jiggle. Some time in July I started dating someone else and as fall rolled around, shifted from my Dad's flat into the new BF's.
I also got my very first car in August. Dad realized I needed to commute to school rather than use public transit so he put it to the family. In case I've never mentioned my paternal nana had seven husbands, only number seven out lived her. It was Grandad Harvey that passed the Chevy Citation to me. It was a way of giving me a piece of Nana as well as admitting that he was too old to drive. I had missed the deadline for getting in to College that year so as fall passed to winter I settled into a new domestic routine and began weekly therapy to undo some of the damage I had suffered over the previous decade.
This was 1996 for me in a nutshell.