welcome_to_my_life

These days I have a totally different relationship with my parents to what I had in my childhood. But I have lots of memories of them from those days.

 Most memories of my dad are of him sitting in front of the TV with the newspaper. He would either be at work, or sitting in front of the TV with the newspaper. Then on weekends he would be in the garage, or he would be out fishing. This caused a lot of tension at home. Mom didn’t like him going fishing on the weekends, but he would go. Sometimes there would be shouting and crying. There would be arguing and blaming. I remember one arguments’ outcome was that he would take a turn to do the grocery shopping  - one week mom and one week dad, I think. And when he would get home with his load of shopping, he would leave all the full shopping bags in the driveway and then go and do something else, like fishing or garage work on his boat. Then from our bedrooms me and my brother would hear mom calling “Guys, shopping!” and we would run out to help take the bags into the kitchen and unload. It was a chore but it was also fun sometimes seeing the fresh new food and yummy cereals I liked and things to eat.

I never had a bad relationship with my dad though. I remember he always treated me very lovingly and would give me a hug or speak gently to me, or tell me he loved me so much. Except, you knew not to cross the line, because the temper was a nasty one. Once we were at the dinner table and my dad had made fish to eat (which he knew the rest of the family, especially me, hated), but he insisted for the umpteenth time that we try and enjoy it… I think I had put a piece on my fork and then smelt it and then I had almost flicked it off my plate in disgust. This did not go down well with my dad. His rage welled up and he grabbed a piece of fish and threw it hard at me, causing it to land on my forehead just above my eye. Then he said something about me being disrespectful, and I sat petrified and ashamed and finished the meal in silence.

Another incident involving my dad’s nasty temper happened to my brother, and I don’t think my brother has ever forgiven him for that, or at least it made a lasting impression that has somehow broken something forever. It was my dad’s turn to fetch my brother from his friends’ house. (This was another agreement between the parents that dad would take his turn to do some lifting, as mom had always done all of it.) Anyway, when he arrived outside the house, he had waited and waited for my brother to come out, but there was no sign of my brother, and my dad had sat waiting in his car. Eventually the rage must have welled up, and dad got out of his car, charged inside the friends’ house, saw my brother standing on a chair in the middle of a circle of children (I think they were playing a game or something), and lifted my brother off the chair, I think pulling him by his one ear and his shirt neck. He shouted at my brother for keeping him waiting so long, and then dragged him out to the car. I think my brother was mortified. He had been yelled at and treated like a demon in front of all his friends.

Other memories of my dad are of him cleaning and gutting fish in the back yard after a fishing trip, and those disgusting gum boots he used to wear that would come home covered in fish blood and smelling fishy. Basically dad would smell fishy and be all sweaty and dirty with oily hair when he got back from fishing, and then proceed to do gruesome things like gutting fish, or cutting perlemoen out of their shells or putting crayfish alive into boiling water. I used to hate crayfish. They reminded me of spiders, which were one of my biggest fears – those 8 long legs and the way they moved… Sometimes dad would put them in the fridge alive to keep them fresh, and they would move a leg or something when you opened the fridge door. I know mom hated all this too, but she seemed to be powerless to do anything about it. My parents were in their power struggle days.

The disastrous family holidays were a clear example. Ultimately we would end up going to a place where my dad could go fishing. Often this meant a tiny village at the sea where there was nothing for the rest of the family to do. Mom didn’t seem to mind taking a book and lying on the beach – if there was a decent beach, which sometimes I don’t even think there was. The tension would start with the packing for the holiday. My dad would want us to wake up at 5am and get eveything done quickly so we could get on the road. My mom would need more time to make sure we hadn’t forgotten anything, and my dad would get angry. Then when on the road my dad would want to speed directly there with no stops. My mom would want to take a slower drive, stop for toilet breaks and maybe a snack and enjoy the journey. Again, more fighting. On some of these holidays the fighting got so bad that I don’t think my parents would even speak for the whole duration. My mom would take me and my brother to go and find things to do, and my dad would be out fishing all day. In the later holidays my parents would take separate cars. My mom could then pack at her own pace and drive at her own pace, and my dad at his. In the very much later holidays, we went to separate places. My mom took me and my brother on holiday and my dad went on his fishing trip.

My mom. My early memories of my mom are of her pinning up her thick wavy dark brown hair and walking around naked in the bathroom before climbing into the bath. I remember talking to her while she bathed and watching how she washed her body and scrubbed under her feet with a nail brush. She said that used to wake her up. I remember her washing her bushy vagina, and I remember her full voluptuous breasts – the kind I always hoped I would develop one day but never did.  (Apparently, as a small child, I once asked her in an elevator full of people, at the top of my voice, completely innocently, “Mom, why is it that you have so much hair in your bum?)

I remember being in the car with her a lot, while she dropped and fetched me and my brother from our numerous extra mural activities. She wanted us to try everything, and I think we did. I enjoyed art and drawing, choir and drama classes, and later netball, karate and orchestra. And my brother loved the theatre school, with his many dance and drama and musical theatre classes. Sometimes on the way home from art classes at the Teachers academy she would take me and my brother for pizza at this small pizza place in Mowbray. I used to love that.

Something I hated though was waiting after school for her to fetch me, and sometimes being the last child standing outside the school waiting, wondering if she had forgotten me. Some parents would ask “Are you okay to get home?” And I would say “Yes, my mom’s coming.” Once I think I actually was forgotten. I don’t remember if it was by my mom or dad. But it was terrible – waiting and waiting and no-body comes. Watching all the other children getting into their cars, kissing their moms. Some of them having played hockey matches after school, but me still waiting and waiting. I think a teacher eventually made a phone call home the one evening and a very apologetic parent arrived to fetch me. I remember vowing never ever to leave my child waiting anywhere for me.   

I always wanted my mom to like me, but I remember feeling like she never really did. She had a temper too and a rather short fuse. I remember trying to talk to her while she was on the phone, or playing around her while she was on the phone, and having her shout “Shut up!” or “Leave me alone” in a really vicious way. I think I also felt she used to take my little brother’s side in arguments, and thought I was the bad one. I don’t remember her ever hugging me or being physically affectionate or telling me she loved me or something nice like that. I always seemed to be irritating or bothering her, or she was making huge sacrifices for me – to take me places, to work long hours so we could do all our activities and have a nice life. Everything was done for me, she would say, but it never really felt like it. I just wanted her. Instead I got an over-worked, irritable mom with a short-temper who was always too tired to give me the attention I wanted from her.  

And things only got worse. I remember mom was very big on doing well at school, and in the evenings she would ask me what my homework was, and then she would help me with whatever I needed, or test me on things, or ask me if I knew my work for the exams. When we were very small she would use those educational toys with us, for telling the time, and doing number puzzles, or whatever. When I got to school I used to work very hard. I knew it was something important. I ended up coming first in my class almost every year at junior school and winning many many awards in my Std 5 year for top marks in class, academic honours, english essay trophy, best all-round pupil, netball colours, deportment, loyal service to the school, general knowledge trophy, ete, etc… My Std 5 prize-giving will always be a highlight of my life, because as my name got called out more and more and I kept getting up to fetch awards and trophies, the gasps from the audience grew and I felt like this superstar. It was a total high. But somehow I never felt good enough for my mom. I felt like I wasn’t the daughter she really wanted. That I wasn’t bubbly enough, or pretty enough, or exciting enough, or even brilliant enough. It’s not that she would say anything or compare me to other people, or any of the other awful things her mother had done to her as a child. Maybe it was just that whatever I did I never felt I really had her love or attention the way I wanted, and that’s why I never felt good enough. Sometimes she would point out other girls at my school who were in drama productions with me and say “Wow, who’s that? She has a lovely stage presence.” Or “She looks like Kate Winslet.” And I would feel like “Oh, you probably wish she was your daughter. Surely you would love a girl like that more than a girl like me.” But I never said anything. I think I just became depressed. And tensions rose at home.

In my teenage years my mom’s strict curfews and rigid rules were a constant source of fights. While friends were allowed out til 12, my curfew was 10pm. My mom wouldn’t want to do lifting from these social events or parties late at night, and I wasn’t allowed to get lifts home with people other than parents my mom knew, which often meant I wasn’t allowed to go out at all. I remember hating my mom for holding me back, and thinking maybe she really didn’t want me to have friends at all. If friends did want me to go out with them, they would then have to be fetched early, at my curfew, to bring me home on time, and I felt really bad for them to have to do this. I just felt like a loser sometimes. And if I tried to tell this to my mom she would scream at me and swear, and I would feel like the worst person in the world. I remember trying to argue my case for a later curfew or something once in the car, and she ended up losing her temper completely and banging her fists down on the steering wheel and swearing that I was a “fucking shit” or something like that. I went home and cut my arms with a sharp object I had. Then I started doing that regularly. Telling myself I was a “fucking piece of shit” and cutting my arms or banging my head against the wall. I think that’s when I started hating myself. And my parents were too busy fighting their own battles to notice.

I remember many evenings sitting in my room doing homework or studying and hearing screaming, swearing, doors slamming and tears. The wheels of a car screetching as one parent drove off in a rage. I remember watching my parents interact and almost being able to taste that angry hatred between them. Seeing them get into a bed together and turn their backs on each other, and feeling like it was the coldest thing ever. Sometimes I would just sit in my room and cry. I wondered if my brother was doing the same in his room or if he was in his imaginary world with his toys. We didn’t really talk in those days. It was a lonely time. I hated my life.

After my parents’ divorce I remember wanting to go and live with my dad. His uninvolved attitude seemed a better option to my mom’s overprotectiveness. But it wasn’t meant to be, and my brother and I left our childhood paradise of Tokai to live in a 2-bedroom flat in Claremont with my mom. My dad moved to a rented house in Kirstenhof which he shared with another guy.

 In Claremont my mom and my brother shared a room, and I had my own room. Somehow my mom knew this wasn’t the time for me to be sharing my space. Still, our tensions continued, and I felt everything I did was judged by my mom. If I chewed my lip she would tell me not to “pull my face in that funny way”. If I got a glass of juice she would say “Get the coaster!” If I looked at the newspaper or her new Time magazine she would say “Don’t touch that until I’m finished with it!” If I put my feet on the couch she would say “Don’t put your feet on there!”  If I turned on the TV it would be “Turn that down! Do we have to have that gratuitous noise on all the time?”

I didn’t even feel I could talk to her anymore without her saying something that contradicted my opinion or condescended me in some way. I felt like every thought or belief I had was wrong, and that she had a counter-argument. I didn’t feel comfortable talking to friends on the phone in front of her, or having friends to visit, in case she heard me talking and judged me or my behaviour. Eventually I would just get home, eat in silence, or answer her in one-word answers, and then go to my room. 

I felt depressed but I didn’t even feel I could share that with her. Once I had told her while we were still living in Tokai, and I remember feeling that she wasn’t sympathetic at all. I actually felt patronized – like what do I know about feeling depressed and what reason do I have to feel that way anyway.

But I did get help. One day I started crying in a class at school and the Afrikaans teacher sent me to the guidance counsellor. He turned out to be the most warm, caring, gentle man and after talking to him regularly he told me I was depressed and sent me to the doctor to get a prescription for Prozac. The talking helped more than the Prozac though. But things did seem better.