once i was 18

as soon as i was 18 i was wild to get out of fort mcmurray and  back to vancouver.  i graduated and it wasn't long until karen and i were out on the open highway in her powder blue volkswagen rabbit.  i was moving to vancouver and she was marrying layne.  when i look back on that trip, i see blue skies, a sunny highway, and big dreams.  we sang on the tops of our lungs and i dangled my feet out the open window.  to me it felt like i was on the brink of something great and wonderful.  like things were about to really happen.

after the wedding katie stayed in vancouver and made it her mission to help me get a job.  it would be my first job that did not involve minding children.  we printed out resumes and went to metrotown.  i was living with  gramma and al in coquitlam but i felt when i moved out, which was only a matter of time, i would live close to the mall.  katie had a notebook. she made me go into every single store and she wrote notes in her notebook.  like, if i should call back, if they were hiring etc.  she even made me go into places like travel agencies and dentist offices even though i protested loudly.  "just go in!  you don't know.  they might have a job!"  the lady at the travel agency looked at me kindly when she finally understood what i meant as i stood there stammering and embarrassed and explained what i had tried to tell katie--namely that you needed some schooling to work there.  i probably muttered some threat to katie as i walked out and she probably laughed and defended her point.  i needed a social insurance number but didn't have my birth certificate.  katie and i went to the employment canada office to apply for one and katie made me ask if they could use her certificate because she was my sister.  

i still remember my interview with la senza.  it was embarrassing.  it was on a bench in middle of the mall and my interviewer was a proffessional woman in a business suite.  i think i was wearing a white skort that i thought was pretty dressy.  i don't remember everything she asked me but i remember something about what my five year plan was.  i had absolutely no idea.

but katie's persistence paid off and eventually i got two part time jobs.  one was at lewiscraft and the other at a educational supply store--the kind of stores teachers shopped at.  the teacher store job was ok.  i got very few hours but it was super low-key.  that's when i started memorizing the 50 states.  there was a game...  that's where i bought 'good families don't' by robert munch. i think it was part of a chirstmas present, maybe for amy.

i was miserable at lewiscraft.  first of all i didn't know anything about any crafts and yet my name tag said "craft consultant".  people were always asking me stuff that i never knew the answers to.  nobody liked me there and i got in trouble for things like sitting on the floor to stock the embroidery floss. i remember how my feet throbbed and ached.  i remember "romeo and juliet, sampson and delilah" playing in the hallway in the mall.  i remember working on halloween and giving candy to all the trick or treaters, taking the bus home in the late afternoon.  i always sat on single seats in the middle of the bus.  i don't remember where but at some point a man got on the crowded bus and handed me a handful of candy. i put it in my bag, making a mental note to remember to throw it away when i got home.  looking back with my life's experience i think this guy was either high or mentally ill.  but at the time i was so young and so innocent.  i didn't know anything and i certainly wouldn't have been rude to a strange man on the bus.  he wouldn't leave me alone. i remember that he was balding and tall and that the whites of his eyes were yellowish red.  he crouched down beside me and chatted to me. i don't remember much of what he said but i remember he asked how old i was  and i said 18.  he was 30 something.  he asked if i thought he was too old. i politely told him that age wasn't as important as how you were inside.  i didn't want to hurt his feelings.  i didn't understand what i was doing.  the bus started emptying out seats started opening up.  i was relieved thinking he would go sit down and leave me alone.  he wanted me to come sit with him.  i didn't want to.  but i didn't want him to make a scene.  i didn't want people to notice us.  so when he persisted i went with him.  he took my hand and held it. i  didn't know how to get it back.  he asked me for my phone number and i gave him a fake one.  i began to picture him following me home from the bus stop.  luckily he got off at lougheed mall.  he wanted me to get off to say goodbye to him.  again because i didn't want to make a scene i went with him.  he hugged me and asked me to kiss him.  this i was able to stand firm on.  there was no way i could make myself kiss this man. i felt like i was in some sort of strange alter-reality.  as fast as i could i got back on the bus and went back to the single seat.  i was so ashamed.  i thought everyone knew and everyone was staring at me. i rushed home from the bus stop.  i was so scared that somehow he would find me.    i didn't say anything to gramma or al. i just pretended i was fine but once i made it up to my room, i broke down and sobbed.

 christmas at lewiscraft meant the mandatory christmas dinner.  i really really really didn't want to go.  we were required to make something crafty for a secret recipient.  oh the awkwardness of my 18 year old self!  i didn't have any crafts under my belt and more than that, the idea of a social occasion with these people who didn't like me and who i didn't fit in with filled me with dread.  so i didn't make anything.  i got an old wine bottle, filled it with cinnamon hearts,( because cinnamon hearts are so christmassy! and who can get enough of them?),  and wrapped it with tinfoil.  i remember the look on her face when she opened it.  officially no one knew who it was from but i'm sure they all knew.  i got a cloth covered binder edged in lace with a ribbon tie and an insert with my name cross stitched on it. i still have it.

i decided i'd be happier as a nanny.  after a couple of failed interviews i sat on a bus stop waiting for the bus to church (it took an hour and half by bus and i was painfully shy and excessively miserable in the ysa branch).  technically i said a prayer but there wasn't much prayerful about it.  i said something like "look, i hate my jobs and i know i will be happier as a nanny so do your job and help me get a job!!"  and so i got a job.  it was to start after christmas.  i gratefully quit my mall jobs and booked a bus ticket home for christmas.

i don't remember much about the bus ride except it was long and that we stopped in jasper and that i had no leg room.  i remember i couldn't wait to get home and that i was worried about jordan who had bleeding ulcers and might not be out of the hospital before christmas.

mom and dad picked me up in edmonton and i drove home with them.  christmas was family balm and healing and joy and laughter.  too soon it was over.  mom and dad, martha and evan drove me back down to start my new job as a nany in north van (deep cove) and to meet baby brenna.  i remember slavica was having problems nursing and brenna was tiny and red faced.

my new boss said my dad was handsome when he dropped me off.  at first my new job seemed great.  but it wasn't. it was terrible.  i took me maybe two months to realize how unhappy i was.  there was delousing the girls, and horrid silk shirts that were wrinkled beyond any fixing.  there was used maxi pads in the laundry.  there was a 3 year old prone to tantrums because she didn't get enough sleep and a 7 year old who would only listen to me when i threatened to tell her mom.  the mom yelled at me and the dad was never around.  she told me when "steven was not pleased" (i ironed two creases in his pants).  i was expected to do all the cooking and cleaning, walk to school, pick up from school, and if she was being punished i had to pick her up for lunch too, plus i had to take the 3 year old out for experiences in the community.  there was no way i could please them.  i was lonely in my room in the basement.  i went home on the weekends.  one day as i was waiting for the 3 year old to be done a dance class i realized that i was so, so, so very unhappy.  i decided to quit.  that evening i gathered my courage to tell steven the 'nice' one, that i was quitting.  he was looking for me to let me go.  i said i would work until they found someone else and went home for the weekend.  gram was in kansas helping uncle fred's family who had just been in that bad car crash.  i spent the time with doug and delanie and finally told them what was happening at my job.  they were sympathetic and kind.  when they dropped off at gram's on sunday afternoon there was a message from my employers that they had found someone new and that i could come get my stuff.  so doug drove me out there.  when i got there they had taken all my stuff out of my room and dumped it on the ground outside the door.  i bet they found the wrinkled silk blouse.  doug stood up for me, but it didn't matter i just wanted out of there.

i phoned home to tell them  i had been fired.  i talked to dad.  i expected he would be upset with me.  but it was totally the opposite.  he was so kind.  he told me about a time he had been unfairly fired.  he told me that just because someone was your boss it didn't mean that they could treat you any way they wanted.  no one had the right to yell at you.  it was a revelation to me.  dad asked me to come home.  mom had fallen on the ice and hurt her back.  katie came home too to get ready for her mission.

i sprained my ankle badly in edmonton when we were down for a regional conference.  i got a job at some place doing inventory but i wasn't really ready to be off my crutches.  on my first day i was in so much pain.  they never called me to come back.  i was on crutches on my birthday.  we watched swing kids at the movies.  once i was 18.