Disclaimer:
This story is not to say I had a tough life or that I was worse off than anyone else, I am aware there are people out there who have it much worse than me. This story is my catharsis, my exercising demons I no longer want in my head!
I am open to comments and questions but not hate, if you don't like my story please don't continue to read it and put up nasty comments
This is my first attempt to write anything ever, therefore it may not all make sense or be in the proper order....it is just for me
I am sure that there are a lot of people who look back on their childhood with wonderful memories of what they did and where they went, all those great memories with family and friends....For me I have to rely on the tales of those in my family and pictures in an albums.
I don't really know why I have no recollection of my past, whether it was self-preservation or some other reason, I can remember certain things but there is a lot that I don't.
Don't get me wrong I had amazingly loving parents who worked multiple jobs to ensure we had a great childhood and went on holidays whenever we could.
I was raised with music in our house and dancing and love, I grew up listening to the greats on vinyl, Nat King Cole, Bing Crosby, The Glen Miller Band, The Carpenters, hooked on Classics and my favourite Barbara Streisand.
What kid listens to Barbara Streisand, no one I knew but I loved her and would listen to her cassette over and over again along with the others. I also loved the old time TV shows like bewitched and I dream of Jeanie etc
I remember being a bit of a loner and tomboy, I was always out on my bike riding around my street pretending that I was a secret spy and talking into my sleeve like it was a radio device, or in my backyard looking for lizards to catch and playing with my dog.
I didn't really have any friends to play with and my sister wasn't interested in playing with me so I would make my own fun.
I would play with the kids in the neighbourhood but as they were all a lot older than I was, it was short lived when they got too old to hang out with me and had their own lives and friends to hang with I was back to riding around on my bike or watching TV for fun.
School was a good outlet for my active mind and body and I really didn't have a too much trouble, at first.
Majority of the kids in my class had been the same since preschool with the addition of new kids here and there but majority of the kids I went to school with had known me since I was at least 4 years old and we had continued through the years at school together.
There was generally only one class per year and no composite classes at my time at the school, so the kids in my classes had been with me from the beginning.
I have pictures of my 5th birthday party with all the kids from my preschool at my house looking like they were having fun, so we must have gotten along at some point.
I had a few friends, one in particular that I was quite close to and we would always be in trouble for being too chatty and we would have fun on the playground, that was until she transferred schools at the end of year 2.
I went into year 3 knowing all the people in my class but not really in a core group of friends, now here is where things get cloudy for me, I don't remember what transpired in the next few years at school but I know one thing, it changed me forever!
From what I can gather, I bounced around trying to find a group of friends to play with and hang around the schoolyard with, until the day came that I decided to try to buy friendships with lollies.
What kid doesn't like lollies right? In my desperate need to find friends, I decided to sneak into my mother's wallet, take a couple of dollars, go to the corner shop, and pick up a variety of lollies to share around.
Initially people would take the lollies, so I continued to take money to keep up with my plan, but then they stopped.
I would be left with loads of lollies left over cause no one would take them from me. I recall that the nasty girls told everyone they were poisoned, I couldn't take them home so I had to eat them otherwise it would have been a waste of money....Right??
To hide the evidence of me stealing money to buy these lollies, I would eat them all by myself to avoid questions from my mother as to where I got money to buy these things. I never stopped trying though and continued to steal money and buy lollies in the hopes that one day it would change.
There was a nasty group of girls who seemed to band together to make my life hell, not really sure what I ever did to them to cause them to be so vindictive towards me but they were ruthless in their efforts to make sure I had no one to play with.
I decided that I wasn't really getting anywhere with trying to make friends with the girls, so I decided to hang out with the boys in my class.
This worked for a while, as I was a tomboy and I enjoyed hanging out with the boys and running round playing soccer or just running around the grounds, we would go to the park up the road or to the bike track outside of school hours and I finally thought that I had some good friends....Wrong!!
After a little while, the nasty girls got to the boys and turned them against me, for what reason I have no idea but I was again lost with no group of kids to hang out or play with or belong to.
You would think that having my older sister who was only 2 years older than me would help, I would have a safe haven to go to when the kids where being mean, someone who had my back no matter what, how wrong I was in thinking that
My sister hated me breathing the same air as her and being in contact with her and her social group at school, was strictly forbidden. I was left rudderless in a sea full of kids where no one wanted to play with me.
There is a story that my mother has told me, however I only have a vague recollection of the events that transpired one day outside of school hours. I was at the park near my house playing with my neighbours grandkids, both of whom where a few years younger than me but we had fun none the less.
I was at the park playing on the play equipment, pretty basic compared to these days, just an old metal slippery dip that would burn your butt in summer if you attempted to take a slide down it and a swing set with 2 swings.
We were doing what kids do until a couple of the boys who had been my friends days early showed up to the park, they began to taunt me and caused me to cower under the slippery dip shielding the 2 young kids I was with as they pelted rocks at me.
What heinous act had I done to cause such retribution from these kids, I seriously have no idea. What had I done to these girls to make them so mean and horrible and turn everyone against me, to this day I seriously have no clue what it was.
Once no one in my year would play with me and my sister was too cool to have her little sister hang around with her or after time had left to go to highschool, I turned to the younger kids in the classes below me, this was ok for a time but didn't really work out long term.
After a while, the bullying had reach a certain point and gotten so bad that my mother felt compelled to go to the school and speak to the school principle and demand that something be done, apart from being called out in class and told to leave me alone nothing changed.
If new kids came to the school, I would try to be there friends before they could be poisoned and turned against me. There was a time in years 5 and 6 where one of the girls who usually ran with the nasty girls took pity on me and would hang out with me from time to time.
She was nice and we got along well but when I asked her why they were so mean to me, she was unable to give me an answer, I was desperate to know what I had done so I could apologise or make right any wrong doings on my part but I never got the answer.
The light at the end of the tunnel was that I would be going to a different high school than the nasty girls who gave me so much grief. I thought my life would start to turn around with new girls who didn't know me or the stigma of my past school experience....it was a fresh start.
