#I only wish I hadn’t started smoking. that’s a big nono

[stories-from-my-eyes]

Sometimes my parents (My dad/his wife and mom/her wife) throw me for a fucking LOOP with how they perceived me as a teenager.

Like on the rare occasions I see them they talk about stuff they did when they were younger like sneaking out or driving late at night, getting into scuffles with people/that kind of shit and then say that I was never a super rebellious or hazardous teen.

They often talk about how I wasn’t as cool as them in their prime; and no, for the most part I didn’t really do stuff like that when I was younger and that’s fine. I never ran away or anything like that. But when I was 16-17 I did some wild ass shit that honestly I don’t know how I didn’t end up hospitalized.

It always confuses the hell out of me since I grew up hearing “if you do something like sneak out or [insert example here] we will find out” so part of me kind of expects them to tell me “yeah I know you snuck out once to do X” but they never do because I spent so much time covering my ass. Some of the excuses I gave and somehow got away with were so half assed anyone could have seen it.

“Everything you did I did first” and yet I once yeeted myself from the second story of a pull barn onto some definitely not-as-plush-as-I-thought hay, simply because my fear of horses of all things FAR outweighed my self preservation and I needed to leave where I was so I could go home and not get busted.

“You can’t hide anything from us we were your age once” when I used to hide vaping from them until I got sloppy and ratted myself out; after my dad swore up and down to my stepmom I would never do that

His bottom like for the smoking was I didn’t get knocked up, I graduated, and I’m not doing hardcore drugs. Which, wow what a low bar, and something in my subconscious was kinda frustrated at him for not making me quit [at 17]. Getting myself to quit for myself has been a pain in the ass since.

“I was smoking pot by the time I was your age, you’ve never even seen someone smoke weed have you?” Smoked once at 16 and a few times at 17. Afterwards I managed to get my hands on a pen of my own and have still managed to keep it from them.

“Nah, Ehvee was a good kid who never got into the liqour cabinet.” LIES. I used to go to a coworkers place after work to drink and have fun until 5 am. I ditched going to my parents on new years so I could go drink canned beers with my partner and her family.

“Well, we always thought you were gonna run away when you were 13.” Don’t have time to unpack why they would have thought that. But while I didn’t run away I would “go for a snack” at the VP behind my house where friends would come pick me up and we’d fuck around on the other side up the state until 6am.

“We always thought you would sneak boys into the house.” What. Dude I once had to chase a dude off of my dad’s lawn with a chunk of firewood because we were gonna hang out while my parents were away but he came in the door rattling off about something racist and I wasn’t having that shit in the house. Also…I have a girlfriend 💀💀💀

It just kinda blows my mind that for a group of people who were my age at one point and who did super crazy stuff as kids couldn’t see the itty bitty details I was too careless to cover. I know my parents aren’t dumb but some of the stuff I got away with I definitely shouldn’t have.

My mom would never believe it some of the things I did. My dad might if I could explain how I wasn’t getting away with it.