Trouble maker

Since I was very young, I was labeled as a trouble maker, I remember one time, when I was about 4 or 5 years old, I hid under a bed at my grandmas house, and even as I heard everyone screaming my name, and even as I saw the commotion of everyone looking for me, my grandma even went out into the street thinking I might have gone out, even after all that, all I did was stay still and quiet, till the scream of "She's here" that came from out of my siblings mouth startled me and brought me back into reality. All the adults were crying tears of joy, they were so happy to find me that I didn't even get a spanking, my mom held me and hugged me, and they all soon forgot all the trouble I had caused. I didn't mean to cause any trouble, I just wanted to be left alone, I just wanted to be invisible for a while.

Yesterday I got in trouble again, the whole family got invited to a party, were one of my best friends from childhood was gonna be. He's married and has children, I hadn't seen him in over 10 years, he offered to give me a ride home, which I gladly accepted, because it would be the perfect chance to be alone with him and talk and catch up, well, he brought me home and in all the chatting and catching up, he ended being gone from the party, where his wife anxiously waited, for over an hour, everyone was mad and worried sick, and I must admit, taking off with him like that wasn't the smartest or nicest thing to do, but we didn't care, we wanted to see each other, to talk, to be taken back to 199o something, when life was easy, when we pain, lonenliness, worry, and divorce weren't words in our everyday vocabulary, when all we wanted to do was to grow up and be independant and move out of our parents house, see the world , and here we were now, wondering how it all happened so quick, wondering how we ended up like we did, me almost divorced and struggling to bring up two kids, him already divorced once, going for the second.

I'm almost thirty and again I feel the same, I want to just hide for a while, be submerged in the stillness and quietness that you could only find on a hiding spot like under a bed, of course I don't fit under any of the beds in my house now, so my hiding places have to be more complex now, I hide behind my everyday life, I hide my sadness behind a broad smile, I hide my desperation under 60 work hours a week, tears are the hardest thing to hide though, when my kids ask why do we have to walk? why don't we have a car? why don't we have more money? more food? why is daddy gone? that's when I wish I was still 4 years old and I could crawl under a bed and be there for a long time, quiet, still, waiting, knowing that I had caused trouble, but hoping to be gone long enough for everyone to forget about it.