Summer Vacation

Ah, summer break. In the days leading up to the last day before break, the minutes seemed like hours, and the excitement never went away. It was like Christmas, but it lasted for three whole months. I was always excited about all the time I would have for reading, and the time I got to spend with my mother. (When she was around.) What kid doesn't love their summer vacations?
A foster kid doesn't. School is your escape, the only place where you can at least blend in a little; feel less like an outsider. School keeps you busy. Helps you push aways the depression and forget how lonely you are. When you're in school you don't get called away from a quiet book to clean your foster parents' sons' room; a room you never even go in. When you're in school you don't have to hear the sons outside laughing and playing with their friends why you are picking their dirty underwear off the floor so you can vacuum it.
When you're in school, your foster father won't burst into the the room and tell everyone to get ready, "We're going bowling!" You won't rush to get ready, excited at the thought of getting to go somewhere, getting to do something! You won't have to swallow your tears and dignity as you are told that "This is a private family day, no one said you were going....", then you watch out the window while they fill the van with the children and their friends. Who needs the foster kid to take up space in the car when it's better deserved for one more of the kids' friends? After all, this is family day, remember?
When you're in school, you won't drip tears all over the Christmas gifts you were instructed to wrap while the family was out bowling with friends for "private family day".
School was my only shelter. I dreaded summer vacation; all those days with no solace from the realities of my life. No friends-I moved too much. Besides, foster kids can't be trusted. If they run away or get in trouble, the foster parents claimed they would get in trouble, so never let me go anywhere. They say these things right to your face-"No you can't get a ride from a friend to school! No telling what kind of people you hang out with! You're not getting me into trouble because you wanna run away! You can't trust a foster kid. Next thing I know you've robbed me blind and taken off with your 'ride to school." I was 16 years old. The school bus came at 5:45 and I got to school at 7:00, where I went to the cafeteria and waited until class started at 7:50. My "ride to school" was a friendly girl who lived nearby and used to ride he bus with me. She knew how much it sucked to have to get up so early for bus ride that was more than an hour, then almost another hour waiting for school to start. She just got a car, and offered to let me ride with her. I would only have to walk two blocks away and I wouldn't have to leave the house until 7:00! My foster parents didn't care. I was just the 'foster kid', and it didn't matter that I had never done anything "wrong" at their house. I never talked back, I hardly ever even asked to go anywhere (I already knew the answer!); all I did was read my books and do my chores. I never stole anything from any home I was in, I was never violent, I didn't do drugs or drink-what made me so bad?
It was because I was a 'foster kid'. I wasn't an individual; I wasn't even given the dignity of having a sex! It's so pathetic to say, but back then, being called the 'foster girl' when introduced in public would have stung a little less.