Lost Childhood

Chapter One

Lost Childhood

Chapter one

I had the conversation with someone again. Poor, poor people, falling into the trap. They believe the world is all sunshine and lollipops. When will they see the dark side? They’re so optimistic. I don’t even know how to be optimistic anymore. I have seen too much of the dark side, things I can’t un see. The world will never be sunshine and lollipops again. They say it gets better, but it’s not true. When she died my whole world started to fall apart. My safe haven was gone. Things just kept getting worse, and they continue to get worse.

Having to move away from my friends, the only people who could make me smile, was like waking up to darkness. I had shut myself away from the world; I couldn’t make friends at the new school. I remember walking around the playground alone at lunch. The kids teased me and said I was sucking my thumb, but I wasn’t, I was biting my nail. They thought they knew; but they knew nothing! I was accepted into a group of girls. Soon they realized I was nothing but depressing, boring and had nothing to talk about, so they rejected me and pushed me back out onto the crowded playground, where I was left to wander alone and pretend that I don’t mind. But I did mind. I smiled and people were so foolish to believe it. If only they could see my inside.

Most kids would be able to go home and feel safe after a hard day of getting bullied. But Dads fiancée didn’t care about us, and she’d rather look after her own children, so she left my brother and I at after school care. The loneliness and bullying continued at after school care. I would sit alone for the many hours to pass along until 6 o’clock when my father came back from work and bought us home.

But it wasn’t a home. It was more like a place to sleep. A home for a young child is full of love, safety, food, toys and relaxation. For me it was feeling unloved, hearing my father and his fiancée argue, and being picked on for every little thing I did wrong. I had nothing left from my old life before she died. To this day, I don’t know where all my toys and clothes went, but they had just disappeared in the move. I had limited clothes; most were hand downs from Dad’s fiancées daughter (not related to my father) who was three years older than me. Most of the clothes were old and ragged. My toys had disappeared, and the ones that I had left, were broken and ruined by my father and his fiancées daughter (is my fathers daughter) who was only a toddler at the time. She was seven years younger than me. She would always get into our only belongings when we were at school, and when we came home they were usually ruined.

The house was not a home, we were hardly allowed inside. Even though my father was the one who worked hard and paid for the house, while his fiancée sat at home and did nothing all day; we would sometimes come home and dads fiancée would make dad take us to McDonalds or somewhere, where we had to stay out of the house until dinner time. Dad usually took us to the library. Most of the time we would sit in the car for hours and read the books.  These books were my only escape.  We had to sit in dad’s car all day on the weekends. Only every second weekend, as the other weekends my brother and I went to our beloved Grandmother’s house.

Her house was a place full of love. I was always excited every second Friday, as I could look forward to spending time with her. She always took us to fun places, and she spoilt us with new clothes and toys. Although when we would bring all the stuff back to the house where we slept with dads fiancée and her family on a Sunday night, it would always be missing or ruined when we came back from school on the Monday afternoon. I remember this time, my Grandmother had bought my brother and I these cool lollies that glow when you pick them up with these plastic tongs they came with. When I went home that Sunday night, I decided to save the lollies, as it wasn’t often that I had treats. Of course when I came home on the Monday evening, most of the lollies were eaten, and the rest were all over the floor. My fathers fiancée, used to watch her daughter ruin our stuff and she wouldn’t stop her.

My Father knew of the way we were being treated. He sometimes tried to help but it usually ended in fights with him and his fiancée. He came up with a solution to buy my brother and I a chest to keep our belongings in so his daughter couldn’t get to them. Most of our stuff had already been broken anyways, so the chest wasn’t very full. The saddest thing that was broken was my brother’s favourite dvd. It doesn’t sound like much, but it bought him back so many memories of watching it with our mother when she was sick. My father’s fiancée never let my brother and I eat chocolates or any thing else that we like. Sometimes my Father would take us to the supermarket when we had to get out of the house and go to the library or somewhere, and buy my brother and I a chocolate. I remember once he bought us a beuno each. I decided to savor the other half of mine, so when I got back to the house I hid it in the chest so that Dads fiancée wouldn’t find it. I never saw that chocolate again. To this day, every time I eat a beuno, I wonder what happened to the other half of the beuno that day.

I remember once, we came back on a Sunday. Not a good Sunday, by good Sunday I mean a weekend at my Grandmothers house; it was a Sunday spent in the car with my father and at the park. It was the evening and we went back to the house where we slept to have dinner and get ready for the coming week; dads fiancée, sent my brother and I upstairs and said we weren’t allowed down. She wanted my father to spend time with her two kids downstairs, and didn’t want us in the way. That’s when it hit me. I was homeless. I was an orphan. I didn’t have a home like other kids did, I didn’t have a place to call my own and do whatever I want in it, and therefore I was homeless. I didn’t have parents that loved me like other kids did; I was an orphan.  

I never cried. I didn’t cry at the funeral, when they got me councillors after the death or at school when I was bullied. I didn’t like crying in front of people; it made me feel embarrassed. But this one time, as I lay on my bed in the dark, un child like room, I let it all out. I cried for my mother. I cried for my friends back home. I cried for the life that I missed, the one I had before. But I got caught.  Dad’s daughter came crawling into the room and saw me crying. I was so embarrassed that I denied it and said I wasn’t, but she crawled back downstairs and dobbed me in to her mother. Dad’s fiancée was so stupid. She asked me why I was crying. WHY DOES SHE FUCKING THINK I WAS CRYING, DOESN’T SHE SEE WHAT HAS HAPPENED TO ME THIS PAST FEW MONTHS! But I just denied it and said I was sleeping and must have been snoring. It’s amazing how people can be so selfish and look past you. It’s even more amazing how they can’t even see that the way they are treating you is most of the problem. I can’t believe they thought I wasn’t normal for crying.