*Footnote #2

Does anyone see the wasted potential here? ...

What I could have been?

I sometimes feel as if all this greatness is inside of me and never got the chance to shine.....Like I was this grand specimen of a seed planted....... Then never cared for.....And left unattended......Grew into a weed.

Suppose I had been loved...Suppose I had been nurtured ....Suppose if nothing else I had the chance to be educated in the normal way...Instead of just streetwise.

What great things I could have done......

Instead, in the shelter of being anonymous..........

I write and hope that if I can't shine....
I can at least sparkle....... So that someone else can see.

The Runaway

Thirteen and a half ...
I was a seasoned, streetwise, runaway child.....

For a whole six months I traveled the entire coast of the U.S.....You slept when and where you could, begged food,clothes, shelter.....Sold your soul when begging didn't work....It gets to a point that you don't care anymore....... You don't think of yourself as being someone to care about........ You just try to survive....

You get cold... hungry.....Tired.....
Scared..........So lonely.....
but you survive.

I remember how I was finally caught.....I remember being so ticked off at the man who called the police on me....... And yet relieved.

I had been hitch-hiking along a desolate back road somewhere in northern Florida when a man came along and picked me up......He had his 2 young children in the car with him....Both sitting up in the front seat....So I climbed in the back seat. I remember these 2 little girls turning around looking at me and grinning, making little toddler faces at me.......And I wanted to cry because they were so lucky.
I don't know what kind of bullcocky story I was trying to feed this rather intelligent looking man about why a young girl my age would be out hitchhiking, but he obviously didn't buy it. We pulled into a service station/grocery where he said he had to get something for his girls....He brought us all out a soda and some crackers and while we ate ........ The police car snuck up on me..........

Damn I was ticked ......But relieved.

Stupid Choices

I look back sometimes and think.... Boy,this is one time I really screwed up ..I'm sure I could have convinced the 'powers that decide' that I was still too 'mental' to be released.......I had it made where I was and yet I made the foolish choice to run........

I don't know if I thought I was invincible or just thought nothing worse could happen to me...But here I was throwing myself back into the world of 'the runaway'......A world that had already proven to me that it could be cruel..........Yet.........Forgetting the horrors of it....... I ran.......Choosing the unknown over the known........

I WAS NOT going back home.

Funny Farm...Let the Fun Begin!

Ok , so the title to this post is bit tacky....Sorry ;)...But having a sense of humor is what gets one through life.

This year of my life is my best so far. Who would think that an almost 13 year old would finally find some peace in her life in ..Of all places a State Mental Hospital? Back in the early 60's when a child was incorrigible, ran away...etc....After trying to reform them in foster homes, reform schools and such ..The next step and cheapest place to house them was in the State Hospitals. Luckily, they did have separate housing for children under 16,(unless they were a threat or escape risk) so they weren't in with the 'regular' population....There were actually counselors and doctors there to try to help....But the best part was...no 'Mother'....no 'brother' ....no pain.

Three meals a day, a nice room ( shared with 3 other co-conspirators) a little school thrown in...And giggles and fun....Ahhhhh the pranks we pulled!! ....:)

Finally .....I was having a carefree 'normal' life... I just happened to be having it in a Mental Hospital.

We ( my co-conspirators) and myself had this scheme going.....Every 90 days we all knew we would be re-evaluated as to our 'mental' status.....And most of us being quite satisfied with how life was going would stage 'mental relapses' to coincide with these evaluations....I sometimes look back and wonder if some of them aren't still there.....;)....Cheers to you, my fellow friends.

Life was good .......

then they started talking about trying to send me home........

and I ran away.