Although the cost of tuition was quite high, I managed to pay for it. As a matter of fact, I paid for it dearly via the last twenty-three years of my life.
When did my problems begin? I don’t know, or maybe, I just choose not to remember. Whatever the case may be, I certainly wasn’t an under-privileged child by any stretch. Brought up in an upper-middle class community, located in the affluent Chicagoland North Shore, my parents were both very attractive and well educated people. Together, they collectively supplied a nice home for my younger siblings and I, but apparently that wasn’t enough; at least not for a child like me. For some reason, I began to exhibit signs of emotional problems as early as ten years of age. By the time I turned thirteen, I was well on my way to becoming a troubled adult. I was different from most of my teenage peers, in the sense that I was totally disinterested in any type of scholastic activities outside of my art classes. I had absolutely no interest in going to college, or even finishing high school, for that matter. Running around with my friends and listening to music was the pinnacle of my existence. I never once thought about my future, because as far as I was concerned, I didn’t even have one.
I was never a good student. I was average at best. According to my teachers, I certainly had the potential of being an above average student, but I never applied myself. My father put a lot of emphasis on scholastic achievements. When I was a little girl, he used to help me with my homework. Unfortunately, my father’s help proved to be more of a hindrance than anything else. Although he meant well, he didn’t have the type of patience required to teach a young child. As time passed, my father became frustrated with me, and would often punish me in ways that weren’t appropriate. Eventually my relationship between my parents and myself became highly combative because of it.
During my sophomore year in high school, I befriended a wayward young woman, who I had met in one of my art classes. Diana was a very rebellious individual with an incredibly warped sense of humor. I was immediately drawn to her mischievous personality; and before long, Diana and I began to spend quite a lot of time together.
Shortly after I met Diana, the two of us collectively befriended a fellow classmate of ours. Angela just so happened to have the same negative attitude toward life, and was equally as rebellious. Eventually, the three of us became virtually inseparable. Diana, Angela, and I were all very attractive young women that looked and acted a lot older than our years. In the early 70’s, most high school students could be classified as being jocks, hippies, greasers, or nerds. My friends and I didn’t fit into any of these categories. We were separatists who did our own thing; unlike most of the young women our age, the three of us always dated men that were older than us or from another high school all together.
When Angela turned sixteen years old, her wealthy father bought her a brand new, shiny, white, sports car. From this point on, the three of us were constantly truant from high school. Instead of attending classes, my two delinquent friends and I spent the greater part of our time driving around the North Shore, looking for trouble. When we became bored with that scenario, we would head over to Diana’s house, to make prank phone calls to our principal’s office, along with sending pizzas, ambulances, and moving trucks over to Diana’s neighbors.
If I wasn’t out bumming around with my friends, I could usually be found sitting in my room, listening to Janis Joplin’s music, for which I developed a life-long affection. I rarely attended any of my classes. My grades plummeted from C’s to F’s as a direct result of my truancies. The handwriting was on the wall; my two friends and I were on the verge of becoming high school dropouts. By the time I turned sixteen, my parents had virtually lost all control over me. I was a head-strong teenager with serious emotional problems that neither my parents nor I were equipped to understand. My parents tried to stop me from spending so much time with my friends, because they felt that they were a bad influence on me; but I refused to cooperate.
At this particular point in my life, my friends were my only oasis. Baffled by my rebellious behavior, my mother and father decided to take me to see a psychiatrist. Their efforts to straighten me out proved to be futile. I told the doctor to go to hell after just one visit, and continued to run around with my friends. The situation between my parents and I had become so incorrigible, that I couldn’t stand to come home anymore. I began to disappear for two to three weeks at a time, without as much as a telephone call to my parents. When I turned seventeen, my mother and father refused to let me live with them any longer. I ended up homeless as a direct result of their decision.
Extremely misguided, I had absolutely no aspirations in life other than to find a way out of my deplorable situation. I dropped out of high school in the middle of my senior year. I was so behind in my credits that there was no point in continuing; or so I thought. My two friends ended up dropping out of school, shortly after I did. From this point on, the three of us had nothing but free time on our hands. While my peers were busy making plans to go to the Senior Prom, my friends and I were busy cruising seedy bars and nightclubs looking for boyfriends.
I was determined to find someone to help me.
One evening while bar hopping with Diana, I stumbled upon my ticket out. I met a quiet young man, who was on the verge of getting discharged from the military. After dating him for a couple months, I decided to marry him. Although I realized that my decision to get married was fairly premature, it beat ending up on the streets. My husband to be was a native of the state of Utah, and my intentions were to go home with him after he was discharged from the service.
I never bothered to tell my parents that I was planning to leave the state to get married. I never even as much as said goodbye, when I left. When my fiancee and I arrived in Utah, we lived with his parents for three months before getting married. My marriage to prince charming was relatively short-lived. Five months after we were married, my husband and I came to the conclusion that we didn’t belong together. I called my friend Diana, who at the time was still in Illinois. I told her that my marriage was over and that I was moving back.
One week after I called Diana, my bags were packed and I was ready to close the doors on the Utah episode. Shortly after I returned back home to Illinois, I contacted my parents. Down and out, I pleaded with them to let me come back home. I was willing to conform to their rules, in exchange for somewhere to live.
My pleas fell upon deaf ears; my parents weren’t receptive to my proposition. As far as they were concerned, I was incorrigible. Alone and destitute, I turned to my friend Diana for help. Once again, her family took me in. I lived with Diana for the next six months, and then one day her parents told me that I had to move out.
Once again, I found myself on the hunt for a place to call home. My insecurities led me into a relationship with a dangerous and psychotic ex-convict, who was on the verge of breaking parole. On a whim, my new companion and I decided to move across the country. Our ultimate destination was San Francisco, California.
We chose to live there because in the early 1970’s it was considered to be the hip-pest and most radical city in the country. Like everything else in my life, San Francisco was also short-lived. After a few months of living there, I knew I had made a serious mistake. I decided to ditch the disturbed ex-con, and returned to Illinois.
The only problem was that I didn’t have enough money to get there. While living in California, I befriended a rather strange woman by the name of Faith. I met Faith in the waiting room of one of San Francisco’s free medical clinics. I was getting treated for Hepatitis A, and Faith was there to pick up a refill for some type of psychiatric medication that had been prescribed to her because of her recent suicide attempt. Faith and I conversed for close to an hour while waiting for our appointments. After our appointments at the clinic were over, Faith and I went to lunch at a small Italian restaurant that was just down the street.