I Scrub Toilets for Money

Yeah, my new job has it's moments. The things I don't mind are cleaning the bathrooms and the kitchens. I don't mind sweeping. I get a kick out of sweeping. I don't know why. It wears me out, but I'm hoping to lose some weight. It is a sweaty job. At the end of the day, my clothes are sticking to me and I hate that damp feeling. Very uncomfortable. Sometimes you get to find cool stuff because some of the people are in such a hurry to move out that they leave stuff behind. If I find coins (mostly pennies) I keep them.

Most of the jobs are in a part of town that I thought that I'd never have to go back to. I saw the building that I used to live in when I was a kid. I never wanted to see that building again. I didn't want to relive that. I had weird feelings when I went there. I started having memories of being a little kid. It was really weird. It would be even more weird to go into the apartment that I used to live in. I wonder if I will remember what happened back then. I think I blocked it out of my memory for good reason. I think something pretty bad happened there that I really don't want to remember. I think I know what happened and I try not to think about it. Just lately it came back into my head and I can't think of those things because they weren't my fault...

So anyway, it's been pretty crazy. Having these weird feelings about my old neighbourhood. I was sitting at a bus stop today and I realized it was on the same street that I used to wait for my school bus when I was in kindergarten. It was so weird. Some of the things I can remember like my first day of school. My babysitter's house is close by there. I wonder if they still live there. It would be cool to see her again and aske her if she remembers me. Once, when I was like 6 years old, I ran away to her house. My mother's boyfriend at that time told me to run away and never come back and I just took my bike and pedaled it to her house. He was mad at me and my mom had to call my Grandmother to come get me. I was grounded, but I told them what he had told me to do and nobody believed me.

I guess that is what kept me from telling anyone what happened. I didn't think anyone would believe me. I don't know why my mom never said anything. I think it was because she was scared about what might have happened. She was scared of being alone. The cops would come and the neighbours knew, but still it kept going on. I started to think that it was normal, that all little girls went through that. What is worse is that I started believing that I deserved it. I don't know why I finally told someone. I don't know what gave me the courage and the strength. I got fed up. I think it was that time he was choking me and he may have threatened me. I was shook up at school and the teacher asked me if I wanted to talk to her about anything.

I told my Grandmother. She believed me. I think my mom wouldn't tell her because she didn't want anyone to think that she didn't have a handle on her own life. I think that was the first time I started to hate the cops. They'd come and would never do anything to help me. I felt that I couldn't trust them. It's been like that for a long time.

Beyond that building that I used to live in, is the house we moved to after that. As much as I am curious to see how much has changed, I keep telling myself that I will never go back there. I don't ever want to go back and face that house. Too many things have happened there and I'd just rather not go. I see it in my nightmares. In my nightmares, I'm scared to go into the basement. I don't know why. I've always been scared of basements.

Not all of my memories are bad. I have some good memories. I remember the day the kittens were born and the tree I'd climb every day. I'd be able to see the entrance to the street we lived on. I could see my mother coming home. I'd try to stay out if she was gone. I learned not to be alone with him. Except that I felt the need to take care of my brothers. It was crazy back then. I wanted my mom to leave him so I'd try to piss him off so that they'd fight. I wanted him to leave. One day he did. He drained my mother's account. He took off out west.

I remember the day he came back. My mother had a new boyfriend. I watched them fight from my mother's bedroom window. That new boyfriend is now my mother's husband. They've been married for 6 years. They have been together for 12 years. He's had his moments. He's done things that I might never be able to forgive him for. It was her choice to marry the guy. I can't tell her what she can and cannot do. She can't tell me what I can or cannot do either. It's weird. I think of her more like a sister than a mother. Maybe that is because my Grandmother is more like a mother to me than she is.