I lived with my boyfriend. Jim W.
We had a studio apartment, a few blocks from my high school.
That worked well for me.
I was a senior in high school.
My boyfriend was an aide at the high school auto shop.
I had met him the year before, when I was given a non running vehicle and told I could keep it if I fixed it. Auto shop had been the solution- I had rebuilt the motor and added some fancies to it. A 1970 Toyota Corolla. I enjoyed that car. Except when I had to push it. Aluminum heads and a steel block meant a recurring problem of blown head gaskets for me, and that car was crazy heavy to push.
It seems like yesterday.
My boyfriend also worked for his dad at a produce company and was a delivery driver in the early mornings. He would go downtown around 3, load up and make rounds, delivering fresh produce to certain restaurants and stores.
The early mornings were hard.
We started doing speed to keep from being tired.
And then we would get super cranky with each other.
We had a dog, a cream colored short hair, medium size dog we called puppy. I can remember taking him on walks behind the junior high where my step dad taught, up the mountain where I had gotten high in middle school and run away to, in elementary school. Those were favorite times, being out of doors with nature and my dog.
I used the pill as birth control but was not always regular in remembering it.
Sometimes Jim would use condoms.
One time, one broke.
I didn’t really think I could get pregnant.
I had already had sex so many times by 18, with so many people. I was told I had an inverted uterus and it would be nigh near impossible to conceive.
That turned out to be inaccurate.
I had a baby forming in my body when I graduated high school.
I was devastated.
My boyfriend was pissed off about it.
It seemed like abortion was the only option.
The day after my 18th birthday he took me to the clinic.
They put me out and when I woke up, they made sure I knew my name and then sent me home.
She would be 33 this year.
Elizabeth.
My little girl.
Jim and I didn’t last very long after that.
Our relationship was based on the physical, and emotional evens caused distance.
So 18 sticks out as a year I found solace in the land. And the year I lost my second baby.
When I consider how much God has done, I am still amazed.
May it ever be so.