642-4: Memories of "home"
Flipping through my magic book of 642 things I stumbled across the topic ” What is the place or object from your childhood that you most think about when you think about home.”
Having a very unconventional childhood in a household of drug addicts, drug dealers, police raids, hookers, bikies, bikie moles, tough guys, domestic violence, changing partners of either gender and lots of moving about, I actually find this one difficult to know where to start, and probably for others to relate to.
I have a lot of memories and experiences from this colourful upbringing.. most are things that a child should never experience. Seeing my first death from a heroin overdose at around 11, being on a first name basis with the police as they apologised for interrupting my homework to search my room during a raid, babysitting 5 year olds as the adults got seriously fucking high.. and just feeling sorry for her and life she’d been born into, standing between my mother and an abusive partner at 10.. asking him to hit me instead just so I had a reason call the police, acting as the adult which included getting my mother up before school so she’d go to work and knowing how to mix up smack in a spoon properly by 8… and most strangely, rationalizing all of this and more as completely unhealthy and abnormal - but normal for me.
We moved a lot, I remember two houses in the one street, a caravan park, a caravan on a family member’s property and finally public housing… before moving cities and in with my uncle and his partner into a more stable environment at 15. One thing I did get the joy of is almost any money, toy or distraction I wanted. I had every Transformer, He-Man figure, Star Wars character, lego set, book, video music and a great collection of teddy bears that a kid of the 80’s could want. I had a (stolen)TV, stereo & VCR (remember those?!) in my room throughout my whole childhood.. for this my friends were envious! Fair reparation?
In amongst my memories of school, play time, catch’n’kiss, tag, band practice (yes I was a trumpet, trombone & piano playing band geek) are the day to day experiences, instability and stories that can stop people at a dinner party mid-desert that are the reality of my childhood, .
When I think of my childhood I don’t think about “home”, I think of these. I’m not ashamed to admit that (unsurprisingly ) for a long time I was a bit of mess and it took a while to get my head sorted as an adult. Thanks to a fair amount of therapy and many rough patches… other than a lifelong management of depression, which comes and goes, I’m mostly fine now
