At last … high school.. what we in junior high had been looking forward to.  My sister was a senior and we rode the bus to school together.. something we hadn’t done since I was in 3rd grade.   Soon however she made it clear that I was not to follow her footsteps, I didn’t know what she meant at the time.

Rolling my skirt up,

The first time I dared,

My brown and white saddle shoes

and boney legs

were bared.

My first boyfriend,

As shy

As was I,

Walking through the halls

The first time

My hands

Were held.

Happy to be

In choir to sing

A time to transcend

My feelings of doubt,

Of fear

Of hiding

Of knowing

That trouble

Was brewing

At home.

Erstwhile,

My first hair curls

In honor

Of my sister’s graduation

I was pleased to sing

“We’ve Only Just Begun”.

Little did I know

How true the song was.

 

That year my father left us and home became even more unstable.  The anxiety, depression, anger and like emotions were thick enough almost to cut with a knife.  Hope was pinned on my sister to go to college.  She however had other plans unbeknownst to us.  Early that next fall, she left college and married her boyfriend and left home.   I was now the oldest, with the oldest brother being given the “man of the house”  title.  It seemed the worst of times.

My mother went to work at the local bar and began dressing in the more traditional western style, complete with boots and pants and frilled blouses. Change was in the air.