I hate my husband

Growing up, my dad was always working. He worked weekdays at the factory and then he would moonlight at the landscaping company he started with my brother and mom. He never came to my basketball games in middle school. He never hugged me or comforted me; that was my mom’s job. He threatened my siblings and me with “the belt” or a shoe or even a wooden spoon, but I don’t think I was actually ever spanked. My dad scared me, though. He yelled a lot, explosively. He was incredibly hard on my brother, calling him useless way too often. To say that my dad’s words to me the night they picked me up were surprising is an understatement.

Once my family knew where I had gone, my brother in-law Joe, mom and dad came via airplane to take me home. They arrived in the early hours of the day. I cannot imagine how much those last-minute plane tickets cost. I don’t remember what happened when I first saw them at the shelter. The memory that sticks with me, though, is sitting on the bed with my dad. He did not raise his voice or scold me or even tell me how insane I was for traveling across the country alone. He calmly told me “there will always be other Travises, but I only have one Lina”. It was then I knew he did love me.

Now, as a mother, I look back at my actions, put myself in my mother’s shoes. I would move heaven and earth to get to my daughter, to make sure she knows how special she is and that she is so very loved.

The rest of high school was not as dramatic. Despite being known as “the girl who ran away across the country”, I still had the same friends and life went on as usual. I was seventeen years old at the start of my Senior year, which meant, according to my parents, I was allowed to date boys. My first real boyfriend (one that was not secret and hid from my family) was an Italian boy named Pasquale. We had a mutual friend, Chrissy. Chrissy was the niece of my Italian teacher. My sophomore year in high school, my parents generously paid for me to fly to Italy with my entire Italian class for 10 days over Spring Break. It was amazing! Despite having visited Italy many times with my family in their hometown, this was the first time I went to all the tourist spots.

Chrissy was my roommate for the entire trip, and we bonded quickly. She lived in a different suburb and went to a different school, but we were the same age and grade. After our trip, we stayed connected for many years. She had a friend that she decided to set me up with. Pasquale was nice and of course my parents liked him. He was Italian with parents born in Italy. However, he was a virgin, and I was not. I needed sex. Craved it. We would make out, lots of heavy petting and rubbing. But the one time I tried to unzip his pants, he stopped me. Disappointment ensued on my end. Months later, about one month before Senior Prom, he dumped me. Why? I have no clue. He either did not tell me or I cannot remember. I was devastated. Now I had to find a prom date.

I got asked to prom by a fellow classmate named John. I felt desperate, so I said yes, only to be told by my friends, you CANNOT go with him. So they made me take it back. Wow, was that a shitty thing to do. But I did it. I told him I could not go with him. Then I asked a few boys and they already had dates. I was freaking out with only a few weeks left before prom. All my friends had dates, except me.

Days later, out of the blue, I get a phone call from a guy named Jimmy. I did not know anyone named Jimmy. He said he got my number from his friend, who went out with me once. We talked for hours, and on a whim, I asked if he would be my prom date. To my surprise, he agreed. Part of me thought that he would stand me up. But there he was, picking me up with a corsage in hand.

I told my parents I was attending the school sponsored Post Prom party. You know, an alcohol free, drug free party. In other words, boring. Instead, my friends and I got a few hotel rooms. We drank, we smoked weed. It was a blast. So many times before, I smoked weed and could absolutely not get high, no matter how much I smoked. It was like it did not affect me at all. But this time, Maja’s date rolled the fattest joint I’ve ever seen, and I was as high as a kite.

Graduation brought upon some intense emotions. Kelly went to Vegas in May (her 18th birthday) to marry Richard. After graduation, they moved to Texas, where he grew up. They had a baby the following May, and I secretly hated her. She was my best friend and I hated that Richard took her away from me. We talked on the phone often at first, but our time slowly dwindled, as we both started making new friends and living on opposite sides of the country.

The summer before I started college at Loyola University Chicago, I spent as much time as possible with Maja and Erika. They were both headed to Southern Illinois University, a college with a reputation for being a party school. Not to mention, it was five hours away from me. They were going to be roommates in the dorms. Once more, I was angry at them. I wanted to be with them. I wanted to go away to college and have my college experience. However, because my siblings all commuted to college and because my parents were strict, my options for college were Loyola or DePaul, both about thirty minutes from our home. It so happens that my brother went to Loyola and both sisters went to DePaul. Even though I was not explicitly told this, I knew these were my only two choices. The college experience, and my freshman fifteen, would have to wait.

From Aaron and Dave, we met more sailors than I can count. Kelly started dating Dave, Maja was with Aaron, and somewhere along the way, I met Travis. Travis, with his good looks and Texan accent, made me swoon when I saw him. Since I wasn’t allowed to date, being only 16 years old, I had to get creative. My parents loved Kelly; she was always over and we always hung out. Once I got my driver’s license, as long as she and I were together, I could take the car I shared with my older brother wherever I wanted.

This is the point when I started lying. Lying to be able to do what I want. Lying to help keep me out of trouble. Lying because I was sixteen and liked boys. But Travis was not a boy. He was a man. A twenty-one year old adult in the U.S. Navy. Sure, that fact made him even more appealing to me. But, thinking back, it was gross. I can’t imagine my twelve year old daughter dating someone that old at sixteen. Travis was charming, though. He knew I was a virgin and we waited a few months, weeks, I really have no idea because teenage time felt different than time as an adult.

One night, Kelly and her new Navy boyfriend Richard decided all four of us would get a hotel room and that night would be the night Kelly and I lost our virginity. We got a room at Motel 6 and, for some reason, there was only one bed, and that bed belonged to Richard and Kelly. Rude. That night was supposed to be THE night. It turned out that Travis could not break through my hymen. Maybe he didn’t want to hurt me or I was too nervous, but we failed that night.

Instead, some time later, we had sex for the first time in his tiny red Ford Ranger truck. Thankfully, he was a short man. And that truck is the only place we ever had sex. Looking back at it, it was not even that great. It was over after he came. I never reached orgasm. It actually kind of sucked. I wasn’t on any form of birth control, we didn’t use condoms, but he pulled out. Miraculously, I didn’t get pregnant. My parents would have killed me. I did have to take a test a few times, though. I often think about how different my life would be had I gotten pregnant at that age. I don’t think I would be a pharmacist, I wouldn’t be with John, my kids would not be my kids.

Weeks passed and, like all military recruits, Travis was moving. He was stationed in Virginia but we promised to keep in touch. We talked on the phone very often, told each other how much we missed and loved the other. I even participated in my first phone sex encounter. Eventually, he told me we had to break up. I was heartbroken. How could this happen? I thought we would be together forever, get married, have babies, live happily ever after. I grieved for a long time. I felt that my only chance at love was lost.
My parents were not only strict and old-fashioned, but they were also very argumentative with each other. They yelled and fought with each other every day. Never physical. Just words. Those words did a lot of damage to me and my mom, too. My dad often lost his temper and said horrendous things to my mom, belittling her, and my brother too, calling him useless. My brother was not useless. He started working with my dad at eight years old mowing lawns. It is crazy to think that this is exactly how my life is now. John verbally and physically abuses my son, calls him names, tells him there is something wrong with him. John complains about how I do simple things around the house, treats me like I don’t matter, talks down to me and is downright mean.

All of this conflict and yelling in my home growing up, combined with the loss of my first love, made me believe that my life would be better without my family. I had a part-time job and had some money saved (not even $200) and I decided to leave. Run away. I decided to run to Virginia to find Travis.