On the Road to Nowhere
My roommate's leaving the system with no money, no home and no direction.

By Jasmenda Padilla

When a bird leaves its nest it's expected to know how to fly. This is what a bird does to survive in the world. My roommate is like the bird that is leaving the nest, but I don't think she knows how to fly. She lacks plans and a direction.

My roommate is going out as a sheep among wolves. Sheep are provided for when they're in the herd. Alone, they lose that protection and cannot survive. My roommate is leaving the herd with no one to protect her. How can she protect herself? She has no job, money or home.

The world demands more from people nowadays with its tough economy, like a high school diploma or GED, but my roommate does not have either of these things. She's leaving The Supervised Independent Living Program, where we live in apartments "independently" though we're still in foster care, the same way she came into it—without one.

My Roommate Looked Like Trouble

I moved in with my roommate five months ago. I thought she was going to be trouble. The rumors were that the girl changed roommates as often as her underwear.

Her look didn't help my perception, either. When we first met, she was dressed in short-shorts and a tank top that showed off her belly ring. My tattoo was just as bad as her belly ring, but it was the way she sported it—like she was the bad ass next door.

At the time, she was in a program that trained her in hotel and hospitality. When students finished their training they would be helped finding a job. The requirements for this program were attending classes, completing homework, passing exams and dressing in professional attire. These may seem like things my roommate could have done without any problem. But usually, she didn't do them.

She'd Sleep All Day, Dance All Night

Instead, after a day of sleep, like a vampire she'd awaken. She'd take out her dancing shoes and hit the Spanish club just blocks away, where she'd chill all night with her people.

Before she'd go, she'd fill the house with music that could shatter the walls, and she'd shake her skinny behind and her curly mane all over. She'd perfume the apartment with a scent of wild flowers that lasted in the air for hours. She would yell with so much hype, like it was her first party ever.

Our IL program knew she was out past curfew, which was 11 p.m. on weekdays and 2 a.m. on weekends, and they'd try to be fake police and call the house to find out if she was home. Sometimes she would wait 'til they called and then leave. When she wasn't home, they'd interrogate me to find out where she was and what time she came home. They would even have her teachers call them if she didn't show up to school.

When Would Reality Hit?

But in the end, all they'd do is give her an earlier curfew, which she'd break anyway, or give her some other punishment that didn't seem to matter much to her.

I resented my roommate's lack of responsibility, and I asked myself, "Has the reality of independence just not hit her yet, or does she want to have fun no matter what?"

She and I were in the same boat in many ways, with all the worries that face kids leaving the system, like will I be unemployed, or homeless or a failure in life? But unlike my roommate, I refused to let my boat sink. Sure I was struggling in my own life, but I was also working and going to school. I didn't want to be another statistic in a depressing survey.

I didn't want her to go down without a fight, either, and I felt bad when I saw that she was. But I also felt frustrated. I felt like she was cheating the IL program. I felt angry that I had to work my ass off and she was taking a free ride. I felt like later on she'd be one of those people who asked the rest of us to take pity on her.

I Learned More About Her

At times, I wanted to do more than just tell her that her life was going nowhere. I wanted to smack some sense into her too. Instead, I kept my mouth shut, unless she asked me, and then I kept it short and sweet. I did not want to make myself look like Ms. Perfect. Even though I resented her, part of me wanted to hold the door of friendship open. I didn't want her to think that I was too much of a snob.

In the months we lived together, my roommate and I didn't become the best of friends. But once in a while we'd both be at home at the same time and then we'd talk. It was usually over some munchies late at night, when the TV or music was low enough that we could hear each other. Then we'd get to talking about sex, love and our life troubles.

My roommate didn't go into much detail, but she did let me know that she'd been in foster care since she was 7, and that she lost her mother to AIDS. She told me real brief, like she didn't want to get into it. She also told me that she didn't know her father, though she did have older brothers who were very protective of her. She told me, too, that she suffered from sickle cell anemia, and the doctors had told her she might just have one year to live.

Lonely and Often Depressed

She told me that she felt lonely, and even though there were different guys she'd dated for pretty long times, she still felt she was searching for love. She said she often felt depressed.

She was very worried about where she was going to live when she left foster care. The IL program had made a mistake in her section 8 form, and as a result the form would not be processed in time for her discharge, which would make it harder for her to find affordable housing. She said she thought about this all the time.

Sometimes she'd sit with me while I did my homework and she'd do her homework too. She said she wished she'd had someone like me around much earlier to motivate her.

Looking Past the Crazy Front

But as the time for her to leave the system drew nearer, she tried less and less and eventually she dropped out of her program all together. She could find no reason for going because she couldn't concentrate. It seemed like she was giving up hope.

My roommate is facing a really bad situation, now that she's about to leave foster care and has no job or permanent place to live. Part of me still feels angry at her that she didn't take the opportunities the system offered her to help herself. That side of me still feels like she's to blame for the predicament she's in.

But part of me feels that what she really needed most of all, all the years she was in care, was for someone to see beyond her wild, crazy front and help her deal with all her fears and sorrows, because those are things that can trip up even the strongest among us.

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