For some it might be during or after college, for some it might be after college or the military, but there is no getting past the memory. That first taste of independence is like that first significant kiss. It seems like years ago, though it's not, yet you can still remember the taste, how you felt, like a match burning without a source of ignition, waiting for something to ignite.
When Big Bro was stationed at a large Navy base with submarines, I flew a small Piper to see him while working on my commercial rating, getting directions to his base housing. I had the street name, but all of the houses looked alike, how would I know which one was his? He said "oh, you'll know". As I drove through what seemed like miles of tiny little identical battleship grey dwellings, there it was. The sign in the yard that said "For Sale, By Owner" with the pink flamingos all around it.
Being the solitary type, my first place was a tiny one bedroom in an old brick building on the 5th floor. There were no elevators, but it was in a clean, safe neighborhood with lots of parking. Too bad I couldn't afford a car. But it was near the bus line, I had a bike and my best friend had a car if I got stuck.
Until I got homesick.
The first couple of months are grand, staying up as late as you want (well late, given you were going to school and working 30 hours a week) leaving your books laying all over the place, without the family dog using them as chew toys. You can have pizza for breakfast, Bologna sandwiches for lunch and more pizza for dinner (if an apple is in the room that counts as your servings of fruit for the day). You can play the radio as loud as your neighbors will allow, which is generally louder than what your parents would allow, if you're living in a building that's mostly full of young people, at least on the 5th floor.
We'd chatter away until the sugar buzz wore off, get a big hug and go tend to our chores.
As I walked into that first apartment, greeted only by mute dust bunnies, I realized, I missed that. I missed dinner as a family around the table, the saying of Grace as we held hands. I even missed Dad admonishing me as I trailed in dirt as I brought in a fresh load of firewood, yet always making sure I was safely in my bed at night, a quiet closing of my door against the noise in the living room, his feet a thick whisper in the hallway as my eyes closed in safety and peace.
Then there another job at the local funeral home chain , where I worked weekends. The owners were pilots who noticed not just my work at the airport, but my college major, and offered me a job and a couple bucks more than minimum wage. That job was ideal for a student. It was their rural location, without a funeral director on nights and weekends unless called.
I was simply there in case a body was brought in or a family stopped by due to a sudden death. In both cases, I knew what to do, and aside from some light housekeeping, the rest of the 12 hour shift was mine to do schoolwork. I learned how to dress and act like a grown up. I learned how to make really good coffee. I learned how to say "I'm sorry for your loss" and truly feel it. I learned what "closed casket" often really means.
Dad grew up with a distant father of whom he has never, ever spoken but to make a trip to his grave in Montana last Fall to "make his peace". But he had a Mom he loved dearly. I don't remember her as the "warm fuzzy" type of grandmother. She was one who made sure her children were given every survival skill known to man, what they needed to survive their childhood, and beyond. For that, though I barely remember her, I admire her.
Being a young adult has its perks, but a high standard of living isn't one of them. But I learned a lot during that time. How to fix what little I owned (duct tape IS a repair), how a crock pot from the Salvation Army could make meals for the freezer for a week for less than the cost of some blue boxes of pasta; how filling bra cups up with cotton and wrapping it around your head does NOT make a good set of ear protection when the neighbor on the other side of the thin wall has an all night date with that was either an overly sexed blond or a wolverine (hard to tell with the noise).
It taught me about working so hard, that when the shift was over I'd lay down on a hard floor in a back room and sleep, unable to stand on my feet long enough to get to a bunk. It taught me about the riotous joy in the smallest of things, the taste of rich soup, the sweet wine of both freedom and communion, the tender kiss of support from the ones that see you through all of the battles.
Some have no choice, they may live frugally, major in something that makes them employable and there are simply no jobs. Or they live at home to care for elderly family members, decisions that aren't ever easy, but they are what you do. Both situations are sometimes necessary, usually transient and not without their own courage.
But others would rather give up that independence, those fledgling adventures from the nest, which often result in a painful swoop to the ground, to hang on to a lifestyle that they didn't earn, one that they may eventually end up in bankruptcy in an attempt to attain without necessary effort.
So I have no regrets of those early days of hard linoleum and loneliness. Big Bro gave up his modern art beverage apartment sculpture and a dead end job and soon was on a Nuclear Submarine. A few years later, I followed him onwards, with my own own ship to command, choosing a life in the sky, both of us learning teamwork and hardship are often intertwined, and only if so, survivable. Neither of us would give up those lean times, for oh, so many reasons.
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Hard times and lean times are only forever if you believe they are. If you refuse to, they are simply brief glances in which for a moment, without measure or context, will lay in your sights, the portent of all that you think you can not bear, and will, there between the darkness and the light.
