WattNaNo Drama Pick Winner 2018. This book has slices of my life, a memoir, covering my difficult childhood coping with my mother's severe mental heath issues and my journey today. This is a collection of short stories that can be independently re...
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They say love and hate are very close together. I can't remember ever feeling love for my mother, so I have to take their word for it; but at that moment I remember I felt the most intense hate I had ever felt in my life.
Though I was in intense pain, I crawled into a tight ball, fearful that she would attack me further.
The smell of urine was present and I was unsure whose it was mine or the puppy. I heard him whimpering huddled under the red chair.
My father rushed towards me and a flurry of people followed in his wake.
Blue lights. Soft voices. Much of it is a blur. My father's tones.
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The Removal Men came with their posse of experts. I heard her screaming, no doubt when they administered the drugs she refused to take and heard the shutting of a Gladstone case. Utter relief soared through my veins, as I saw them escort her out of the house.
They insisted on taking me into hospital and once they found a bed, I slept properly for the first time in months; no chair positioned under the door handle tonight, she wouldn't be disturbing me with her rants.
When I awoke, my father was sitting bedside me, pale and concerned. "I'm so sorry I was late Esme, the train. The car broke down, I had no choice but to take the train."
He was sobbing. The roles were reversed and I patted his arm, like a mother.
"It's okay Dad." Maybe it wasn't but what else could I say to him. He needed to hear me say that and I knew he hadn't meant to arrive home late.
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"Esme, the doctors want to talk to you."
"Yes, we do. We want to know where all the bruising came from," said an older man in a white coat who stood before me.
"My, mother...," I said.
"No," said a young doctor, "the older bruising, on your arms and legs, historic. Not the same."
I swallowed. I looked at my father and he looked at me.
The men in white coats gathered together, a group of them looking foreboding before us.
My father opened his mouth to speak, but the old greying doctor raised his hand to stop him and shook his head.
"We want to hear what your daughter has to say," he said pointedly.
"There's been trouble at school," I said. "The girls they don't understand about mum. Their mean."
"Mean?" asked the young doctor.
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"They been hurting my daughter," said my father, "already one child has been removed from the school. It's been fully documented."
You see children don't like it when you're different. I never followed the crowd nor did I trail blaze. Most of my life, I have walked my own path and went where it led me. At school I struggled to fit in and yearned to be the same as everyone else but I realised it was fruitless. I could only be me. In truth none of us are the same. We are all unique. My mother's illness singled me out as an object of ridicule, time and time again. Until I grew older, school was not a great place to be. It wasn't their fault, they just didn't understand. I had no choice. To me the unusual was normal.
As a child, I became adept at making friends with the widow neighbours down our street. Many an hour I managed to escape the confines of number 5 by listening to their stories of a bygone age and baking with them. Even today I find the act of baking comforting. It reminds me of their kitchens and my grandmother.
The truth was I was using everything at my fingertips to the best of my advantage and making it work for me.
My survival also involved mingling with older souls and others who didn't fit in.
Words were my escape and my freedom and they still are; the only difference is that as I have grown older I have found others who are a little different like me, and their called my friends. They accept me for who I am and revel in my sense of fun but then, it was very different.
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Today my non-writing friends love the fact I am not the same as everyone else and in all honesty, I don't really care about fitting in a certain box or following the crowd.
It's probably why I love the company of writers, they feel like my tribe and accept me for who I am without question.
I'm comfortable in my own skin and who I am. I'm not everyone's cup of tea but then who is? However, I've always seen myself as just an ordinary girl.
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