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Theoretically Chapter 10

Going back to my actual autobiography.
I left off where my parents dropped me off at a laundry mat in the middle of the single men's barracks & said I had to find my own way home because I wore a pair of jeans (at 21 years old) that my step mom didn't like. I managed to make it around 4 miles to my job at the time before it closed & one of my coworkers & friends let me crash at her and her husbands apartment.
He was a Marine and they lived off base. It was cool for awhile. All we did was work, hang out, drink and party together. There was a small group of us that all worked together and we always hung out, drank, cooked, ordered paper view fights & at one point we all lived in the same apartments for awhile.
We were all super young early 20's. They were all married and had pretty toxic relationships. I started dating one of my roommates husbands friends. He tried to convince me to marry him so we could get base housing so then I wouldn't have to worry about staying with friends anymore. You'd be surprised how many people do this....or maybe you wouldn't, if you know you know I guess, military life, it's something else lol.
I actually dated 3 different guys that proposed the same exact option. Looking back now I'm kinda surprised I never gave in. But I didn't like, let alone love any of them enough to marry them that was for sure.
My last boyfriend in California was "R" he was the first person in awhile I dated that wasn't in the military. His dad was in the navy and ALWAYS deployed. Like had been deployed the last 3 years. But they had a nice ass 2 story house off base, all 3 kids were actively in college and had their own NEW vehicles. That's pretty huge in Cali because it is NOT a cheap place to live. Everyone I ever knew that was younger and had a car was driving a 20 year old Toyota or Honda and that was the norm for us lol.

"R" also worked at the electronic store at the time. We had known each other for awhile but never looked at each other in that way. I guess when I left my parents and could dress like a normal 21 year old woman and not someone who had just escaped "The Duggar" cult I looked a little different.

I noticed he started talking to me more which led to me realizing that he was really fucking smart and hilarious. He wasn't really my type because he was like an inch taller than me & Im barely 5'3 😬 But I fell for his personality. I remember his mom hating me at first because I was white, she was Filipino and his dad was Black, Hawaiian & Filipino. It wasn't an assumption by the way. He straight up told me, my mom doesn't like you because you're a White girl lol. He was always BRUTALLY HONEST. So anytime he wanted to chill at his house I felt uncomfortable because I knew she didn't like me. We spent most of our time wherever I was staying. Eventually things got a little a strained, my friend/roommate & her husband were having a lot of issues & asked me to find somewhere else to go. Lucky for my homeless ass one of my other friends stepped up.
Her and her husband sat down and talked to me. He was like, "I'm deploying so it would probably benefit "T" to have you around and not be alone." He said I had to pay her like 3 or 4 hundred a month, I don't remember the exact amount but it was a lot given my situation. Mind you they lived on base for free & I made 7.50 an hour at the electronic store. But I agreed because I was immature & ignorant due to being controlled my entire life & never learning anything about finances.
Plus I didn't have any other options at the time. It got weird staying there pretty quick. I was basically giving away my entire livily hood to stay with her & she didn't want my boyfriend staying the night EVER and other dumb shit. Her husband cussed me out over the phone and told me that I needed to leave without 30 days notice or anything like that even though I had been paying more than they did to live there 🙄 I never liked him, even before that.
He was a misogynist douchebag that treated her like shit, he had often made comments about all of us in regards to our looks and bodies. Come to find out later on he had cheated on her too. Our little group of girl friends ALMOST talked her into leaving him at one point.
So I said fuck it and left. My other friend whose husband was also deployed said I could stay with her for 200 a month and have my own room. And she didn't care if my boyfriend came over because she was hardly ever home anyway. She was always more laid back & mature than the rest of us. She was also the supervisor where we worked but the youngest out of all of us.
Things got back to being fun between all of us again after I moved in with my friend "Rf."
My relationship with "R" got pretty toxic though. We fought all the time & eventually he got physical with me but I got physical back. We were the same size so I would be damned if he really thought I was going to cower to him. Super healthy, logical thinking back then on my part. I always had bruises, especially on my wrists, arms and rib cage. But so did he.

There was a day when my friend "A" and I (my first roommate) went to lunch together. We hauled ass off base to go get burritos at this hole in the wall right outside the gates that had THE BEST fucking Mexican food.

We showed up like 30 minutes late from our lunch break. Granted we knew we were wrong for that. We didn't expect what was coming. We both got in trouble but the manager fired me. Only me. This job I had all my friends worked there, even my boyfriend worked at the bank right next door now so I always had a ride (I didn't have a car then) so it was super convenient. After I lost my job shit got real. Obviously I had no money for anything anymore even paying rent. Eventually it came to the point to where my friend had to ask me to leave and understandably so. I was an adult and it wasn't any of my friends jobs to support me, but telling myself that didn't make my situation any easier. "Rf" at least showed me some grace and gave me time to figure something out but eventually I did have to leave, I ended up at my boyfriends house. I couldn't believe his mom agreed to let me stay. She made me sleep in the living though lol.
In the midst of my life falling apart I had found my cousin whose 2 years younger than I am from Oklahoma on MySpace.

Just a reminder, the last time I saw or talked to my family in Oklahoma was in 1994. It was 2005.
I messaged him and it took a couple days for him to write me back. Of course that gave me anxiety. What if he remembered what a little asshole I was when we were kids & hated me, what if he doesn't remember me at all and thinks I'm nuts lol. Questioning and worrying how other people viewed me was nothing new in my life.
But he did message me back. He was the first one I talked to over the phone. Then his mom, my great aunt "T"
NOT the great aunt that got guardianship of me back in the day. That's great aunt "L."

Word spread fast that I was "found" and we all had a 3 way convo on the phone with all of the aunts. We caught up, cried, laughed and I told them the situation I was currently in. Great aunt "L" bought me a ticket back to Oklahoma and sooner than later California would became a distant memory.