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Family posted : 04/11/09 at 09:25am pst listening to:the sound of my typing.

Being realistic, I've not got time to write this blog but I'll do it anyway.

I told Alohra that I'd make this blog about my parents. My parents are difficult for me to explain but I'll try and enlighten you at least a little:

Mum:

(back in the day :D)

My mum was born in 1963 to a working class couple already in their 30s. This is probably why she can be so old fashioned sometimes. I can't deny that she's more liberal and open minded than her mother but that doesn't mean she's modern. My mother is a good person when she wants to be. When my father was gone for ten years she cared for me and played the role of both parents as best as she could. I'll always have an incredible amount of respect to her for that.

When I reflect on this I realise it mirrors the same story another billion people could tell about their mothers and fathers. This doesn't make the story any less real and it doesn't change the impact that it has on our lives. The events that take place during our childhood and our adulthood shape who we are and we should never doubt their significance.

When I was growing up my mum realised that in order to be able to bring me up herself as opposed to dragging me to day care every day she would have to find a way to work from home. Soon enough she began to foster. For years I shared my little room with children from a less fortunate environment. By less fortunate I don't mean wealth because we were not well off at this point in our lives by any means. I mean we lived with children who had parent's suffering from mental breakdowns, children who had suffered at the hands of abuse and children who were mentally/physically ill. Some of the kids I knew have passed away now. I was never devestated when I would hear this because I always knew that their time was coming sooner than it should have. This is the reality of certain conditions.

During the day my mum also did day care so despite being an only child there tended to be someone around. When I was very young sometimes I would resent the other children because I didn't want to share this time with my mum. Eventually as time went by I realised that sometimes my home was the only place some kids had experienced real love and attention so I became more accepting. You have to understand it could be difficult sometimes, some kids were vicious and would try and attack me.

I guess I'm talking more about myself. Let's get back to mama. Mum blatantly had a lot of stress on her plate but what I really need to say is that she always prevailed. Despite it all she managed to survive and made sure that I had all the things I needed and more. I remember a lot about her when she was younger, I remember when she was still in her 30s and she had this awesome perm. One of our two cats was called Zippy. He loved her perm and would stare at it for hours. He used to climb up on her chair, up to her shoulder and nuzzle his face into her hair then find the one curl he was looking for with his mouth, pull it untill it was straight then let it ping back to rejoin the perm. Hahaha.

My mum is amazing and psychotic. Thank god.

My Dad:

Dad and I missed a lot of time together. I never saw him from when I was 5 untill I was 14. Although he wasn't in jail and he wasn't the one to walk out on me or anything so dramatic, I'd still rather not go into all the details. I will tell you about some things though.

My Dad was a player when he was young. He was a bad boy and the chicks loved it. This was a stark contrast as my mother was a goodie two shoes. He had a difficult life when he was young and came out of it in his early to late teenage years as an arrogant, egotistical rebel. He turned his back on the Catholic church but always felt very strong connections to his family. His siblings are incredibly important to him.

He met my mum in a local club one night and he'd already been tipped off she had a crush on him. He walked her home and then they started dating.

If only everything had been so twee. This was not to be. About a year after I was born they seperated and then 4 years later, he was gone from my life.

My mum and I made do without him and were successful in doing so. I grew up without any feelings of having missed out on a father figure. I don't things are as black and white as you need a parent of either gender to make you a person. I am a real person and I'm proud of my mother. I've got enough male in me to make up for a father.

When I was 14 I became curious though. I never wanted to run off to live with my mysterious father or anything of that sort, I simply wanted to know if I was really like him. For my whole life people have commented on the unbelievable similarities between him and I. We look incredibly alike and even share the same mannerisms at times. Strange because he wasn't there for me to have picked them up. I called him and we started to meet once a week. It's the same now, we still do this and we get on. We've had many many difference during this time.

My parent's started talking after 13 year when I was 18. I don't know if I should really be admitting to this but I was hallucenating on LSD at the time. I didn't mean to be in my defence. The year before I was pretty mad for acid but at this point I had genuinely calmed down and used the drug infrequently. I had one multi coloured tab in the fridge that morning and it was scorching sun outside. Beautiful, unbelievable weather for Edinburgh. The multi coloured tab called to me and I thought, 'why not?'. I ate the tab and started doing housework. Just as I could feel the acid creeping up on me, my phone began ringing. I answered and it was my Mother. She told me she was just reminding me that her and my father were meeting tonight and that I had to be there. FUCK. My heart skipped a beat. I know she had said they weren't meeting untill the next again day and she'd changed it. I knew I couldn't convince her that she'd failed to tell me about the change of plan, not just because she's hard to convince but because I was now starting to wonder what the difference between my hair and the phone cord was. These kind of thoughts make it difficult to think of a convincing argument.

I met them both and because it was many hours later I was over the difficult bits of the trip. I was able to appear not fucked up and had a nice civillised drink with them. hahaha. You don't even want to know the kinds of serious conversation I had to have while still mildly tripping. Thankfully the trip was mostly something that made you ask questions in your head as opposed to being visual.

I love my parent's but we have an odd relationship. I think things will always be a little strained as we have so very little in common. It's good because they're trying to become more open minded to my life and I'm trying to become less judgemental so I can just accept them as they are. It takes all kinds to make this world.

So there you have it. As always I kind of hope you enjoyed.

 

Viewing 5 comments on this page

Revolutionary
04/11/09 03:05pm pst

aw *smiles*

helica
04/13/09 10:03am pst

aw.

wychlea
04/11/09 06:43pm pst

This was a great post.  We all have such interesting stories to tell about our parents.  I thought I was the only one witha  soap opera family, but most of us have these sort of stories.

Thanks for sharing!

OXOX

helica
04/13/09 10:03am pst

:D thanks for commenting. It's true, everyone has their own dramaz

Aiden
04/19/09 01:28pm pst

This is a wonderful post. I'm so glad you shared this. I feel like I know you a little better now.

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