I can keep it up any longer. And I think when we finally go from here, it’s going to be another trailer park for us. Travis hates it on the trailer parks, he always gets scared at night and starts sleeping back in bed with me for safety. I’m just trying to do my best on my own and I don’t think we would have any other choice but to go for it. I don’t want to move him out of school again, I don’t want to unsettle him yet another time, but if it comes down to it then I will have to.
We always want the best for our children, and I’m no different in that matter, but it isn’t as easy to give Travis everything I would like to. I just can’t afford it.
“Come on, just get on with it,” I scold myself. “The more work you manage to get done, the more you get paid at the end of the week. If you work hard now, then you won’t have to be up until midnight again.”
Not that I believe myself on that front, I’m always up until the early hours of the morning trying to get as much work done as possible to put food on the table for both of us.
As I start typing, I think about other people in my position, other people who have young children and I wonder if I’m the only one struggling that much. Maybe I’m not the only one but it still hurts. It hurts so much that I don’t like to think about it. The thing is I could have is for my parents to help me, there is no reason for me to be alone like I am. I might not have grown up in the richest environment, but my parents were never as poor as me and Travis are. Even the support and childcare would be amazing, but I have nothing. They have cut me off completely. They don’t even know where I live these days...
I knew that my parents were going to be disappointed when I saw that blue cross on the pregnancy stick. Even more than most parents would be. They always wrapped me up in bubble wrap and treated me like I was a baby, rather than a growing teenager, trying to shield me away from the real world. They spent so long focusing on keeping me away from everything, trying to turn me in to what they wanted of me, that they didn’t even seem to notice how much it made me rebel. I used to sneak out at night to go to high school parties, to spend time with my friends, to meet boys and do other normal teenager things, because they didn’t leave me a choice. It was the only way I could have any fun.
Sneaking out and rebelling always led me to push things further. My parents were so strict on me, so hard, that I felt so amazing by breaking the rules. It became like an addiction to me; I couldn’t stop it however hard I tried. Every time I argued with my mom and dad, I knew that later on I could be out having fun, without their knowledge. It made everything that much sweeter.
And when I met Ronnie, my rebellion went ten steps further. I was head over heels in love with him, I thought he was the one. I adored him so much that I lost interest in everything else, including my work at high school, which inevitably lead to more arguments and more rebellion. It was a vicious cycle that I didn’t know how to end. At least I didn’t until I saw that little blue cross. I knew then that nothing would ever be the same again. I expected it to be bad, but I guess I didn’t know just how bad it was going to get. I didn’t realize that I would end up losing absolutely everything. I suppose I was naive.
Obviously, the arguments were horrendous. It was the worst few days of my entire life. I brace myself before I told them, but I never could have prepared myself for the way my parents were going to treat me. It was like I had murdered someone, as if I had committed some really horrific crime, rather than falling in love a bit too young and ended up with a baby in my belly. I couldn’t see what I had done wrong; I