I grew up without a fixed address
Officially, entire chunks of my childhood don?t exist A few years ago, I applied for a freelance grant writer position at our school district in northeast Pennsylvania. The job mandates all potential employees or contractors undergo a state background check, which required me to list every address I?ve had since the 1970s and every person I?ve lived with during that time. My sister laughed and asked how many sheets of paper they allow you to use. We both knew, also, that there was very little official record of any of the places that make up my past.
I grew up poor, living in an estimated 70 places before I graduated high school. For many of these pit stops, there?s no proof I was ever there. For me, and others like me, impoverished and lacking stability, entire chunks of my childhood don?t officially exist. My family lived in a sort of ?constant temporary? state. We moved almost nonstop. Often, this was because we couldn?t afford rent. But sometimes it was also for our safety: For a long portion of my childhood, when my mother was trying to leave my father or after my parents? divorce when I was 8, my mother and siblings and I were trying to stay under the radar so we couldn?t be found by my often violent father, who had routinely violated orders of protection. Most of my immediate family was born in New York City or the coal region of Pennsylvania, and we moved around throughout the Northeast during my childhood in the ?70s and ?80s. My father had begun dealing dr...
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