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[Populist_Prole]

46. Pretty much every year from 1970-1976-ish

My parents divorced in 1970, which seemed to create a chain reaction of upheaval and lack of stability and security in my life for the next half-dozen or so years. Money very tight; I guess we were poor but I didn't know it then. Lots of moves meant never getting much chance to have friends of any duration during my elementary and middle school years. I was always the shy new kid. Mother, presumably under duress of her own, was moody and volatile. Home life could be tense at times. Hearing of my other peers, I was quite literally amazed to hear so many still lived in the house they were born into, and how none of their parents were divorced. There were pinpricks of good times here and there, but they were fleeting and I knew it...knew they would be over soon enough. I seemed to be in a perpetual state of melancholy "sunday night" blahs.

It was tough for my brothers and sisters too but worse for me since I was the oldest. I was old enough to know what was going on, and how much it sucked: But too young to do anything about it. High school sucked, and for the reasons many others would feel, but at least by then our living arrangements were stable. I never really became happily autonomous until after graduating HS and going to college. The 80's were great, even as they began with me just eking out a living.