I left home when I was 18, like lots of kids do.  I didn’t wait until after I graduated.  I didn’t even wait until the end of the day.  Rather I skipped school that morning and Kris Krehmeyer skipped also.  As soon as my mom left for work, Kris and I piled my clothes into his little chartreuse Karmann Ghia and we dropped them off at Terry N’s house and went back to school.  Terry’s mom had agreed to let me live with them while I finished up high school, and she’d gotten us jobs with her at Sears, in the catalog phone sales center.

While I was living at home in east Hialeah, my routine was to come right home from school and call my mom.  She’d give me instructions about things like bring the laundry in off the line and fold it, and what to take out for dinner.  She worked for Western Union from 11:00am until 9:00pm.  Mom would prepare dinner each morning, and I’d heat it up at night for my dad and brother. But the night of my 18th birthday, it would be different.

When I’d moved everything out earlier that day, I left my mom a carefully written note.  I simply explained that I was 18 and had a job and was going to finish high school.  I had moved in with a girlfriend and her family and no she couldn’t know who or where because I didn’t want my dad to know.  I just had enough of his control, no hard feelings, I just don’t live here anymore.  And that I’d talk to her each day.  I was in that teenage stage of “I hate my father“.

When I got home from school that day, I called mom at work as usual.  I was going to not say anything and just let her find the note, but she knew something was up.  I spilled the beans.  I told her where the notes were (two notes, a second one in case Daddy found the first one and threw it away without telling her about it.)  I told her what it said.  She was quiet a moment but I knew immediately that it was okay.  And she and I were close enough that she knew I’d still talk to her and let her know what was going on with me.

So while she wanted me to wait until after graduation, I didn’t see the point in that.  Heck, I wasn’t even GOING to graduation… or prom.  That just wasn’t my scene.  I had a job.  She knew I was responsible.  Heck, at 17 I’d already paid off a personal loan from 13 year old Brian Pyke down the street for some car I bought just to lock things away in.  I didn’t even drive or have a license.  So anyway, she was not too upset about me moving out, although she always called it “when I ran away from home.”   She wished me happy birthday and that was the story of how I moved out of my parents’ house.