Being McKenzie Prince ✔

Dear Diary

It is strange how when we are younger we have this unexplainable innocence. We blindly tell our parents everything. It is as if though we trust them with all of our hearts. It could be because for a large amount of time we are fully dependent upon them for our survival. When we get hurt we would run to them with the tears streaming down our face. If we get bullied by one of the older kids in the neighborhood we tell them every single detail. We have faith that they have all the answers.

It may come across as a surprise but it was the same with my mother. That was before I realized that she could not care less about what happened to either one of us. Her own needs and survival were greater than that of her own children.

My mother's full name is Allyson Lillian Prince. Her maiden name was Smit. She grew up in one of those posh and expensive neighborhoods. She was one of those girls who went to modelling competitions and who took etiquette classes. She wore frilly dresses with floral patterns on them. The type of girl who had her whole life planned out and she knew exactly where she was headed. She was the type of girl who laughed easily. She got away with almost everything she did with a smile and her parent's money. She was obsessed with boys, especially one boy in particular, my father.

They were what people of today would call the perfect couple. They had picnics under the stars and danced in the rain without music. They would lay in each other's arms and tell each other their dreams. He wanted to become an Artist and a musician and she wanted to become a Doctor. She wanted to help people and he wanted to travel the world, paint and sing about all of his experiences. I still have a few of his pencil drawings. There are chords and lyrics written along the edges. A part of my father I never really met. They chased each other on the beach and threw each other with sand. They were made for each other in every way. There was no doubt that they loved each other. Their love was undeniable. It was epic. The kind of love they would write books about.

The problems started when my mother found out that she was pregnant at the age of sixteen. It must have come as a shock for someone so young. I can only imagine the thoughts that went through her mind. She must have been really scared. Should she keep the baby, should she give the baby up for adoption, should she get an abortion? What would her parents say? What would my father's parents say? What would her friends say? What about their dreams for the future?

I have never had a real conversation with any of my grandparents on either my father or my mother's side. My mother's parents threw her out of the house instead of attempting to support her. My father's parents literally disowned him. They were ashamed to even acknowledge him as their son. To them it was as if though he died overnight. They did this because my father decided to support my mother and help to raise us instead of getting rid of the problem.

In a way I guess that I cannot really blame them for turning out the way that they did. It still does not justify their actions, or does it? Is it somehow justified to throw your life away because your parents kicked you out and rejected you? That would mean that it would be okay if Skye and I gave up. That we should just accept that our life is going nowhere.

My father's name was Alexander Prince. Even though my mother never legally married my father she later changed her surname to match his.

They struggled with money from the beginning. They both left school and took any job that they could get. They worked hard to earn enough money to rent an apartment. I can only imagine what shock it must have been when they realized that they were not only having one child, but two, a boy and a girl. I do not think that it was a very happy moment. They already struggled to survive and now to complicate things even further they found out they were going to be stuck with two of us.

After we were born my father got a job at a construction company as the person who made the actual bricks. The owner felt pity towards my father, who was only seventeen at the time. My father was actually exceptionally smart, but there was no way that he could get a proper job, because he did not even graduate high school. Even if my father wanted to go back to school they could not afford it.

He did not earn a lot and he started to drink. I think that he somehow thought that the more he drank the less chance there was of him feeling like a failure. My mother tried to be a good mom at least that is what I think and hope. Maybe it was ignorance that made her forget now and again that she even had children.

After my father's death my mother tried really hard to raise us on her own. In spite of the fact that she struggled as hard as she did I do not think that I ever realized that we were that different from other families. If you were raised a certain way then it becomes normal to you.

Do you remember the first time you chose to not tell your parents something? To keep something secret to yourself?

I remember that day clearly. I was seven years old. Skye persuaded me to walk with him to the store down the road. He was planning on buying something with the money he had been saving by doing small jobs here and there. One of those small jobs included mowing our neighbor's lawn. We ended up walking to a store in town because our local café was closed.

Skye bought each of us an ice-cream. Two kids ran into the store and grabbed a trolley. They threw it full of sweets and cool drink. The trolley was stacked and my mouth fell open. I asked my brother;

"Why can they buy that many sweets and we can't?"

He looked me straight into the eyes and said the following;

"Because we are poor."

It was that day that I learnt that we were different from other families and that not everyone lived the way that we did. I never told my mother that I came to this realization. I just carried on living as if though nothing happened.

I guess it is not really a lie, but it felt like one. I could not talk to my mother about how I felt.

It was around this time that my mother started to date a bunch of different guys to try to get them to provide for us. I think that she blamed us for the way her life ended up. According to her we ruined her life. If she never had us, then she would have never known what it was like to struggle in life. She would have had everything, the perfect life, but we ruined her fairy tale ending.