During the summer of 2019 I lived with my father. We had an estranged relationship and were working on fixing it. I lived with a step brother, half sister, stepmother, and of course my father. The summer went by fast and it had boulder sized bumps.

      Bump. My step mother would take me to work in the gas guzzling truck. After taking  me to work a couple of times my father wanted to talk.

 “It takes too much gas to take you to work and pick you up.”

“ What do you want me to do? I need to go to work.”

“Well you are going to have to start paying for gas then. I can’t afford to keep putting gas in the truck.”

“Are you serious? I work like 10 minutes away.”

“I’m putting hundreds of dollars into just gas for the truck. Now you can either start paying for gas or you can not go to work. End of discussion.”

After that “talk” I started putting my own hard earned money into a car that wasn’t even mine. 

  Bump. The stepmother and I had some disagreements. 

   “You left and didn’t do the dishes.”

“Yeah I did. I shouldn’t have to do them when you're at home all day doing nothing.”

“You can’t talk to me that way. I’m your mother.”

“You aren’t anything. You shouldn’t even be a mom.’

“You can go live back with your mom.”

  That was the last straw. Thankfully my mom had just dropped me off that night. I called her. In between shaky breaths I was finally able to say that she needs to come pick me up. 

  That night my dad didn’t get up from the couch. He just watched as I packed my life up again. That night was the biggest bump. That night I realised I had to grow up and be a bigger person than my father and his wife.