It was the middle of the Carter recession. I’d graduated from college but there was not a job in sight. I sent out resume after resume, and didn’t hear back from a one of them. I was living in my parents house, and was severely depressed because my girlfriend of two years had dumped me when I graduated, and because I hated living with my parents and because I had no job prospects.
My parents thought I wasn’t doing anything to look for a job, and I certainly was doing less and less. One night, my father started yelling at me for being lazy and not getting out of the house. I guess he was working himself up, because at the end, he pointed to the door, and screamed “Get out!”
“Now?”
“Now!”
So, with the clothes I was wearing, I left the house, stumbled down the hill through the woods, running into tree branch after tree branch. Finally, I ended up on a road. I don’t remember what I did then. I think I may have gone to spend the night at a friend’s house.
I never really trusted my parents after that. Their tactic may have worked, but it was too harsh. I vowed that I would never turn away a friend or family member if they needed a place.
My siblings said they learned a very important lesson from my example. Don’t go home again! After my brother graduated from college, he actually did live with me for a month—maybe more before he found a place of his own. My sister found a job teaching English in Japan, and hasn’t been home since. That was more than thirty years ago.