When I was 19, I moved out. I had a girlfriend and I wanted freedom. I had a friend who’s brother was looking for a place to share rent with. We all met and came to an agreement. Together, I found my first apartment on my own. It was on Nightmare Street. It was really called Uncas Street, but it ended up being a nightmare. Apparently, I had to learn for myself.

It didn’t take long for the chaos to start happening. First, it was our roommate who liked to drink and have parties. Drink, drink, drink! While that was problematic, my next memory was coming home from my weekend of doing security at Pocono Raceway to find an EXTRA MESS.

There was the fish tank that got destroyed, because my friend thought it was funny to get the fish drunk. (Don’t worry dude – I think it’s funny now LOL – and you apologized and made it right) However, that wasn’t even a dent in my problems to come. I had much BIGGER FISH TO FRY.

My girlfriend had invited her X-boyfriend over to the party and they were locked in the bedroom while my friends called it out, right outside the door. The X-boyfriend left the party, only to find his car had been keyed, by no coincidence for sure! I suddenly had this dilemma, of choosing my friends or my girlfriend. Balancing that and trying to keep my now new, two lives separate, was a challenge.

That was just the beginning of the out of control life I had set in place for myself. There was that time, I got jacked up against the wall in my in own apartment by one of my girlfriend’s bar buddies.

Then the night where another man showed up at my apartment and was with my girlfriend alone. I caught them hugging through the back patio door, when I came home from work during my break. That night ended with a chaotic scene in the hospital where I worked. My girlfriend had made her way back into the lab where I was stationed, trying to pitch her case that she wasn’t cheating on me. I had to have security remove her after a huge altercation in the parking lot of the hospital. She wouldn’t let me get in my car to leave. She followed me, in what became a high speed chase. Up one way streets the worng way, blowing stop lights trying to run away from her. I crossed the double yellow line on a curve at high speed and almost hit an oncoming car. My luck, it was a police officer. With my keen 19 year old mind, I decided to take a high speed turn into a gravel driveway, in effort to hide. The car slide across the gravel and across an electrical line ditch that was in process of being dug out. The car smashed into the dirt pile on the other side of the ditch where it came to rest. But I still wasn’t done! I can run! I can beat this! I will run into the woods and they will never find me! Something finally clicked, as the officer pulled up to the mess. Self talk: “Phil, this will work out just how it works out on COPS. (The TV Show) You better just turn around and face the music” That night ended with me in handcuffs being arrested for reckless driving.

The relationship finally ended the day I was going to meet my girlfriend at work but my girlfriend called to tell me she was meeting a girlfriend for lunch instead. I watched her get into the keyed car of her X- Boyfriend and proceed to follow them to lunch. I waited for them to get a table and then went in and sat down next to them. It was a scene right out of the TV show Cheaters well before that show was even a concept. That day ended with me renting a van and moving all my stuff out of the house before she even got home from work. It was over…. except there was still some stuff left I had to get back.

That lead to the GREAT EASTER MOVE OUT – where 2 not so happy COPS, came with me and a couple of my buddies to get the rest of my stiff from the apartment. We were met with 10 dudes sitting in the apartment waiting for us. Somehow and only by the grace of God and those Cops, we got out of there unscaved.

Of COURSE, after all that! – I got the message. Great plan! Where do all FREEDOM FIGHTERS go when their plans fail?

BACK TO MOMS.

Jeremiah 3:12 NIV

Go, proclaim this message toward the north:

“‘Return, faithless Israel,’ declares the Lord,
    ‘I will frown on you no longer,
for I am faithful,’ declares the Lord,
    ‘I will not be angry forever.