Tiny Plastic Houses

When I was 19, I lived with my mother still. (This wasn’t exactly due to my choosing, but being stuck in a hospital bed for over 6 months, unable to walk or properly care for oneself, makes you reliant on those willing to care for you.) A month prior to this inglorious birth date, I’d been crushed in a car and had just returned home from the hospital a few days before, where my mother and grandmother took on the bulk of my convalescent care.

I didn’t have a job, couldn’t stand or sit up very long for half of the year, so that was out. Very few people came to visit, so I spent a lot of time with my family, my boyfriend at the time, and myself. Mid- year, I purchased a Pontiac Sunfire with the money I received from the insurance company and went back to school. In the Fall I moved out of my mother’s home and into my first apartment in St. Joseph, MO, not too far from school. I used a cane for a while, but it became unwieldy (not to mention ugly ), and I eventually chose to hobble rather than trip people up with my implement of mobility.

By Christmas, I could walk pretty well and my hand had begun to work again. By the time I turned 20, most people didn’t realize there had ever been anything wrong with me.