It's Not Me, It's You: Subjective Recollections From a Terminally Optomistic, Chronically Sarcastic and Occasionally Inebriated Woman by Stefanie Wilder-Taylor Page B
Authors: Stefanie Wilder-Taylor
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lining a shelf.
“I’m manic-depressive,” she said, gesturing to the bottles.
“Oh, yeah? My biological father has that, too,” I said, trying to bond.
“I hear it’s genetic. Anyway, let’s go eat,” Tammy said. “Breakfast is at 7 a.m. sharp and then there’s cleanup and chores, but it’s almost ten so we can have a snack.” Tammy seemed hyperfocused on food, which meant either she was a woman after my own heart or this place was really fucking boring.
“Great.”
According to the chore sheet I found in the kitchen, I had toilet scrubbing, dinner dishes, dusting, and vacuuming to look forward to on my first day. Everything was on a level system and since I was new, I was a level one, which I quickly found out carried very few—ok, no—privileges with it. Ihad to earn the right to have dessert, watch television, walk to the store, go to bed later than 9 p.m., and even use the phone. This whole system seemed entirely unfair. This wasn’t a juvenile detention center; these kids were in need of someone who cared about them. They weren’t here because they’d committed crimes. I had been dropped off by my parents not because I was into drugs or alcohol or shoplifting but because I was argumentative. The rules and strictness seemed oppressive and worse than boot camp. Before we moved, I’d considered trying to join the military, but it didn’t seem doable, mainly because I was too young and I doubted they would take someone with a physical impairment like contact lenses, so I had ruled it out.
My first night, I went to my room straight after dinner and read If There Be Thorns, the latest in my favorite V. C. Andrews series, until Tammy came in looking distraught and shaky. She said she was certain she’d heard her boyfriend sneaking around outside, and although she didn’t see him, she knew he was there. We sat and listened for a long time, but I never heard anything and eventually fell asleep.
By day three, no one had heard from my mother. The hope that she’d have regretted her decision and come right back to get me had faded, and I was becoming accustomed to the routine. Other than Tammy, I hadn’t really talked to many kids. But I’d been given store privileges and spent some of the five dollars I had on a pack of Hostess Snowballs, which I snuck and ate during “group.” These days the pros would call it therapy, but at the time it was more of a rap session.
If it was possible to have a favorite part of the day, group was it. People were encouraged to address why they were here during the session, which was run by a resident counselor who’d for three straight days worn the same dingy jeans and gray fisherman’s wool sweater. I started to suspect that this was his uniform to make the kids feel like he was just like them. I found this vaguely comforting, along with his habit of never being able to get his glasses to sit straight on his nose in spite of endless adjustments. The best thing about him was his laid-back demeanor. He never pressured anyone to talk, but if you did he listened as if there could be a pop quiz. Plus, he smoked cigarettes compulsively—about a pack an hour—which seemed to somehow draw out even the toughest, moodiest among us. Maybe his compulsive side made him more human, more relatable, or maybe the steady secondhand nicotine just eased the anxiety. Most of the kids staying there were pretty sad cases: unwanted, molested, wards of the court, bounced from foster home to foster home with the shelter serving as a holding cage between nightmarish situations. I suppose it made me feel better about my life when I compared myself with them.
Jeremy, the guy I’d noticed on the first day, turned out to be fifteen and on the run from his fourth abusive foster home. Another kid was there because his father had recently been arrested as a suspected serial killer. This sort of put things with my stepfather in perspective. I considered recategorizing him as “menacing but
“I’m manic-depressive,” she said, gesturing to the bottles.
“Oh, yeah? My biological father has that, too,” I said, trying to bond.
“I hear it’s genetic. Anyway, let’s go eat,” Tammy said. “Breakfast is at 7 a.m. sharp and then there’s cleanup and chores, but it’s almost ten so we can have a snack.” Tammy seemed hyperfocused on food, which meant either she was a woman after my own heart or this place was really fucking boring.
“Great.”
According to the chore sheet I found in the kitchen, I had toilet scrubbing, dinner dishes, dusting, and vacuuming to look forward to on my first day. Everything was on a level system and since I was new, I was a level one, which I quickly found out carried very few—ok, no—privileges with it. Ihad to earn the right to have dessert, watch television, walk to the store, go to bed later than 9 p.m., and even use the phone. This whole system seemed entirely unfair. This wasn’t a juvenile detention center; these kids were in need of someone who cared about them. They weren’t here because they’d committed crimes. I had been dropped off by my parents not because I was into drugs or alcohol or shoplifting but because I was argumentative. The rules and strictness seemed oppressive and worse than boot camp. Before we moved, I’d considered trying to join the military, but it didn’t seem doable, mainly because I was too young and I doubted they would take someone with a physical impairment like contact lenses, so I had ruled it out.
My first night, I went to my room straight after dinner and read If There Be Thorns, the latest in my favorite V. C. Andrews series, until Tammy came in looking distraught and shaky. She said she was certain she’d heard her boyfriend sneaking around outside, and although she didn’t see him, she knew he was there. We sat and listened for a long time, but I never heard anything and eventually fell asleep.
By day three, no one had heard from my mother. The hope that she’d have regretted her decision and come right back to get me had faded, and I was becoming accustomed to the routine. Other than Tammy, I hadn’t really talked to many kids. But I’d been given store privileges and spent some of the five dollars I had on a pack of Hostess Snowballs, which I snuck and ate during “group.” These days the pros would call it therapy, but at the time it was more of a rap session.
If it was possible to have a favorite part of the day, group was it. People were encouraged to address why they were here during the session, which was run by a resident counselor who’d for three straight days worn the same dingy jeans and gray fisherman’s wool sweater. I started to suspect that this was his uniform to make the kids feel like he was just like them. I found this vaguely comforting, along with his habit of never being able to get his glasses to sit straight on his nose in spite of endless adjustments. The best thing about him was his laid-back demeanor. He never pressured anyone to talk, but if you did he listened as if there could be a pop quiz. Plus, he smoked cigarettes compulsively—about a pack an hour—which seemed to somehow draw out even the toughest, moodiest among us. Maybe his compulsive side made him more human, more relatable, or maybe the steady secondhand nicotine just eased the anxiety. Most of the kids staying there were pretty sad cases: unwanted, molested, wards of the court, bounced from foster home to foster home with the shelter serving as a holding cage between nightmarish situations. I suppose it made me feel better about my life when I compared myself with them.
Jeremy, the guy I’d noticed on the first day, turned out to be fifteen and on the run from his fourth abusive foster home. Another kid was there because his father had recently been arrested as a suspected serial killer. This sort of put things with my stepfather in perspective. I considered recategorizing him as “menacing but
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