Homelife

[kokomojoe]

Just want to be clear, I'm not trying to dig into your background or past so if you don't want to answer then don't. I'm just generally curious about what everyone's homelife was like, where'd you grow up, what'd your parents do, were they around, did they know/care when you started traveling, etc? Like I said, I know this is a real touchy subject for a lot of people so don't feel any pressure to reply.

 

[Alex the Weaver]

I'm always shocked when I meet a Traveler whose home life wasn't messed up. My family was probably somewhere in the middle of the spectrum of messed upness. They probably couldn't have cared less when I hit The Road and I just slowly but surely lost touch with all of them. I think it's a good thing though, I have owe them nothing, and everything they stole from me or what have you is just so many reasons why I get to do what I think is right, not what they think I should do.

More people will probably reply if you tell your story.

 

[kokomojoe]

...

More people will probably reply if you tell your story.

Good point. To be completely honest, I couldn't ask for a better homelife as far as family goes. It's pretty much looked at as outdated or traditional in people's eyes nowadays but my dad would go off to work and my mom would stay at home and take care of me and my sister. I guess it kinda started bugging me for some reason when I figured out that most people don't get to live this type of way. Most people either come from broken homes or at the very least both parents are at work and they never get to see them. The worst I ever had to deal with was my dad taking his anger out from work. He'd never beat me but he'd just yell at me over anything he could and never really tried controlling his anger. Another slight downside to coming from such a traditional type of family background is that my parents never really understood why I was so interested in wanting to go off and do my own shit. They never understood why I'd rather go skate or make art than join some school sport. For the most part we get along but it's still like we're living on different planets as far as understanding each other and I doubt that will ever change. I just kind of became the "black sheep" of the family lol. There's really nothing bad about it though and I'd feel like a spoiled shit if I didn't appreciate it.

Beyond the family/homelife parts of my background that people might want to know about is the fact that I never really had any solid friends/relationships growing up. As a little kid it's easy to be friends with anyone, you didn't need any real social skills. Throughout elementary and part of middle school I'd always make a friend and the next year they moved away. Most of the people I was friends with when I was younger would just beat the shit out of me. Mostly due to the fact that I never really fought back. To this day I don't know why I didn't. I guess I was just glad to have someone to call a friend. By the time I was in middle school I didn't really have any social skills and ended up hanging out with whoever. Nowadays, I'm not nearly as antisocial as what I used be but at the same time I still wouldn't classify myself as someone who fits in the "normal" type of society.

As far as reasons to why I want to travel is to see the world for what it really is and not how I was taught to think it is.

Overall I'm content with my past/upbringing. It's not even close to as bad as A LOT of people's and it'd be pretty fuckin greedy to ask for anything more.

 

[Alex the Weaver]

Overall I'm content with my past/upbringing. It's not even close to as bad as A LOT of people's and it'd be pretty fuckin greedy to ask for anything more.

Interesting. Right on. You know, everything's relative. One night I was hanging out in a park with a Traveler Friend in her town and a couple other hoboes and we all realized we were bullied growing up. The Traveler Friend went on to be her high school's home coming queen and went to college with a soft ball scholarship where she was in a serority. For whatever reason she was the one who pointed out it was like we came from different planets, but she was bullied as a kid and though her parents were together at least when she was young, they had a horrible and demeaning reaction to her coming out as bi or a lesbian so... even though they were somewhat wealthy and stuff like that I know aspects of her childhood were pretty horrible. I hope this thread doesn't turn into Oppresion Olympics! But it was interesting reading your story and I hope more people reply.