Educational Angst

Sometimes I am just not sure which way I am facing. I want to turn around and look at where I have come from so I can figure out why I am here and see if I can remember where it actually was I thought I was heading.

I know that I am lucky, okay I am not financially very well off but I have a great family and I live in one of the most beautiful places on earth. Right now I am sitting on my bed at 8am in the morning. It is warm enough this morning that I have my bedroom door opened wide on to the deck and Ardi, my dog, is laying across the doorway, his doggy smell wafting in a little and reminding me that it is high time he had a good bath. The birds are singing frantically in the gum tree that overhangs our deck, the bright green leaves look just too beautiful against the clear blue of the morning sky. Through the silver branches of the tree I can see Emu mountian in the distance and beyond that the headlands of Noosa national park. I guess if I stood up I could probably also see, beyond Noosa, the white sand-dunes of Double Island Point. So, this isn't far from paradise, where I am right now, my feet tucked snugly under me and happy memories of this room surrounding me like a blanket of love.

I have almost recovered, this morning, from the emotional angst of the last few days after arguing with WD while she was home. I had been so very, very angry a her but this morning I woke up terrified for her and wishing so much that I had been more supportive and helpful. She is due at her class in about an hour, she would have been up for most of the night preparing her final presentation for the semester. Her piece is certainly artistic and I am praying that they will overlook the technical shortcomings and give her a pass (or better). I am actually angry at myself for not helping her more now whereas last week I was angry at myself for helping her at all.

Our arguments were mostly over her lack of commitment to uni. I have to take a long hard look at myself here. I am a parent, I want the best for my child. I can't believe that that is a bad thing? She hung up on me one day last week after I had just spent hours helping her by reading over a major assignment for her and checking her references. I suspect that I shouldn't be even helping her that much but it was the desperation in her voice and my pathetic desire to be 'needed'. Then a day or two later she hit me with the.."I am going to quit uni and become a musician". So here is where I really need to take a good look at myself and why her saying something like that is like a blow in the guts for me. I mean, shit, it's not my life, why do I care? She's a great singer, she could have fun with that?

Here's the deal though, maybe some of you remember that a few years ago I desperately wanted to go to uni. I started putting my application together before S shot me down in flames suggesting that I might find it a but too tough and we couldn't afford it anyway. I am not the most confident bunny so I figured money would be best spent on my kids education anyway, not silly old me..... So yea, there it is in a nutshell, I am jealous.

It's pretty pathetic to be jealous of your child isn't it? Is it a common thing though? I mean I just wanted her to have all the things that I didn't have and I have pushed her a bit, some would even think that I haven't pushed her enough. I am pretty lenient and understanding but right now, if she does throw it all away so soon I won't deny I am going to be devestated. I am just off the phone to her tonight (You'll be relieved to now I am no longer sitting on the bed, I did get up and actually had a lovely day). She told me that she will fail her exam on saturday and that she refuses to study for it. That really pisses me off. She could just be saying that to annoy me too, who knows?

I guess I can see that I am heading in all the wrong directions here, that in trying to be a good parent I just wind up being a crap one and in trying to be selfless I may have just wasted a whole heap of energy for nothing and probably would have just been better off doing what I wanted to do for me. Meh.

Dear Mother-in-law

Thankyou so much for your call this morning and your rude sarcastic tone when I informed you that no, your son was not at home mis-spending his time with me but out working in the cyclonic wind and pouring rain. Your assertion that you would call him on his mobile(to check if I was telling the truth) shows again your complete understanding of his busy schedule and your naturally kind and thoughful nature. Your continued consideration of his health and happiness was again evident when you did not bother to enquire as to how he was or whether he indeed had any time to take your long and self-serving call. Your insistance that you will attend the State of Origin match with my husband's infirm father is interesting when in the very next breath you proceed to damn, detest and deride him. This is especially so when you have repeatedly stated over the years that no-one would drag you to watch such a pointless revolting game, as "My time is rather more valuable to me that that!". This decision to attend is also despite your clear knowledge of the thrill it would give my husband to go, especially given that it is his blood relative(not yours) who is likely to be honoured at this match. My husband's phonecall to me, following yours to him, was again filled with the choking pain you always leave him in. I hope you enjoyed your morning of spreading spite and poison and look forward to your continued complaints against my son for his not doing enough jobs around the house for you, kissing your putrid feet nor being the fictitional totally unrealistic son that you think you wanted him to be. Evidently, the indesputible fact that you are the mother of a truly beautiful person has escaped you yet again and any small showing of a mother's love and kindness is beyond you. I can only thank you now for the vitriol you spat at me when first, in 1988, you backed me into a corner in your hallway, stabbed me in the breast with your pointed finger and told me that I was NOT the daughter-in-law you wanted. Indeed I would likely detest myself if I WERE the type of person that somebody like you did approve of so you will understand my thankfulness in this matter is heartfelt. Coincidentally you nor are you the Mother-in-law that I hoped for! I also appreciate your advice at the time that your son was a horrible person and why anyone would want to marry such a dreadfully disagreeable, drug addled dropout was completely beyond your comprehension. It seems that despite your oft touted law degree and constant air of superior intelligence, many things are. I will also take this opportunity to thank you for your part in creating the sensitive and well adjusted man my husband is now. That you have reached this pinnacle of achievement through cruelty, selfishness and downright evil has only served to ensure that your son is the complete opposite of you. His lifelong battle to break away from everything you are, has been a constant torture and the pain and guilt he feels now in acknowledging his rejection of you, is in contrast to your complete lack of regret at past horrors or consideration for anyone other than yourself. Another aspect for which I am eternally grateful to you is the luxury that I have of blaming every one of his small and insignificant faults and every one of the equally insigificant hiccups within our marriage entirely on you. Any disagreement that we have are obviously again the result of his rebellion against you. His refusal to put the toilet seat down is your fault, as is his occasional excessive alcohol consumption and his sometimes mildly irritating passion for football. I am left in no doubt as to your culpability for any actions he has taken over the years which have been in any way cold or remote or have shown any disrespect to women. You must be so proud. Clearly I have much to be thankful for. It is a shame that you too cannot be thankful he is not like you, for if he were I can only imagine the fireworks as the two of your fought to force your will upon each other. So I will thank you again for your phonecall. I appreciate these calls, seldom and succinct as they may be, as they serve only to remind me of all that I must be truly grateful for. Your one and only... daughter-in-law, Alice. Apologies for the long and poorly structured sentences, anger doesn't like to spell-check.

Evil , insanity and why we should move to the other side of the world.

Dear Mother and Father-in-Law, I can truly say from the deepest part of my soul that I think the two of you are the most revolting despicable people on earth. The manner in which you have treated all five of the poor souls who have had the misfortune to call themselves your children makes me want to vomit in your faces. From your decision to abandon two of your disabled children one as a baby and the other as a toddler, to care facilities while you lied to your remaining children and for all intents and purposes pretended the other two did not exist sickens me beyond belief. Although in the past I have had great sympathy for you and have tried my best to be understanding as to the reason for your decisions, I now find, given the clear picture you are now giving of the true state of your hearts, that you do not deserve my sympathy nor my understanding. Your two sons are both wonderful people but you seem unable to see this and instead are determined to cause them as much pain and agony as you can as you constantly deride them and express your dissapointment in them for not fullfilling some completely unrealistic ideal of what your warped minds think your sons should have become. That you somehow believe, after all of this, that your sons, in any way, owe YOU respect is beyond me when you have never shown either of them one iota of respect in their entire lives. Then there's your poor adopted daughter. The poor girl must ask herself what on earth she did to have been cursed with such unbelievably evil and incapable parents. Surely the world could have found her a normal family as not only does she have to now endure the knowledge that her real mother was unable to care for her for whatever reason but also that she was supposed to be some perfect substitiute for the imperfect children that you did not want and that anything less than perfection from her would never be tolerated. You both make me sick and I truly hope I never again for all eternity have the misfortune to be in your company. The words in the letter that my husband received from you today were beyond belief. You most definitely do not deserve him as a son and your greatest fear that we might "keep the children from you" is now about to become a most definite reality. Unlike your children, my children absolutely adore their father and unlike you he respects them and he deserves their adoration. Your EVIL* daughter-in-law Alice *I feel poisoned right now, my heart feels black and hollow and it sickens me. That the actions of these people make me feel emotions that are as evil and sick as them sickens me, I have to write all this anger down because I feel that if I don't put it somewhere it will overtake me and I will do or say something that I will regret.

Cold call

When the phonecall came through I was standing in the kitchen, I can't remember the room well now, only that there was a breakfast bar and it was the kitchen that had been put in by the company who used a photo of my sister and her first husband in their catalogue.

My oldest sister was hugely pregnant and sitting on a breakfast stool. I think she was wearing her dressing gown, she was enormous; it was fairly early in the morning cool and crisp as it always was in that house and so very, very clean. My sister's houses are never anything like that anymore.

I think I had just woken up and she and I were drinking cups of too hot coffee. She always made it too hot for me, and then after a few sips she would put hers back in the microwave to heat it up again.


.......
I see her face as she listens to the words from the caller. "Yes, she says, Alice is here with me" Her voice strains at the end of the sentence. I can hear her fear.

I know that someone has died, when a call like that comes through there is never any doubt.

I sit down and I am prepared. Grandma would have been 85 then. I had been preparing myself all my life that one day she would have to go. I reach my hand out to my sister and ask if it is Grandma. My sister's face is grey, she is still on the phone, I cannot listen though, all I can hear is a rushing of blood in my head. "It's Dad", she croaks. She muttered into the phone some more and the chair beneath me seems to push up into my body. I want to have misheard her, I know that she is wrong. He is only 61, there is a mistake. I stand up and run into the bedroom where S is asleep. I wake him and tell him hurriedly then I hear the alarm in my sister's voice calling me back.

As I run back I am numb and I see her there, crumpling into herself. I hold her and she moans with fear and shock.

The phone is back in it's cradle. The sounds she is making feel remote, silly almost but I stand firmly and I comfort her. I am thinking about the baby due any minute. I am thinking that I need to go outside and run. I want air in my lungs. I am numb and I am suffocating and my sister needs me.
.......


I don't remember much after that, only more phonecalls and my father's sister saying he was better off now. I wanted to ask her how the fuck she came to that conclusion?

All I really felt is an overhwelming need to get out of that house and away. I wanted to be home on the property where I could run away into the paddocks for miles and scream and scream and scream. Instead I walked sedately down Wilson Street in Oakleigh to the train station. S is walking with me and he is saying the wrong things and I want him to shut up.


.......
We catch the train into the city, past the MCG and we climb out at Flinders street. We walk up to the mall and I am walking too fast but no walk is fast enough for me. Everywhere I look people are doing what they do every day and I am in a bubble and everything feels wrong. We reach the mall and go to the lebanese cafe around the corner. It is like the old cafes in my home town with booths down each side and chrome edging on the tables. We don't go inside to eat because I need to be in the open and I don't know why. We buy falafel rolls wrapped in white paper and we need to find a place to sit to eat, we go the the post office and sit on the stairs.

The juice from the roll drips down my chin and I don't care. I want to scream and cry but I can't. I am surprised that I can eat, that my hands look the same and the sky is still there, where it was yesterday.

We were supposed to meet our friends 4 weeks ago in Ulladulla, they never showed, so we have driven on to melbourne. To my sister, to other friends, to jobs. In that moment with the falafel juice on my chin, and reality smacking me in the face, a line of tall travel-weary surfers trudge up the stairs in search of mail from home.

It is good to see them. They say that Jim who I am scanning for, has gone to my sister's place looking for us. So they get their mail and we go to the closest pub. Which is what we usually do and this does seem right.

The pub we go to is a step or two down from the street. It is dark and there is dark timber and loud carpet. We stand at a round shelf built around a pillar. I have a VB. This is the worst beer in the world, after this week I will never drink it again. S talks happily with our friends. Bob asks me if I am alright and I nod. They don't know what to say to me and it is alright.

In this room I am having a beer with my dad. He would like it here, I turn my shoulder slightly to shut off the others. I picture him standing beside me and in my head we have a conversation and as always he cracks jokes and I laugh and I worry that the haircut I gave him isn't perfect but he is happy and he is smiling and I don't want to turn around when the others talk to me because when I do that, I will be back in the real world and I don't like it here anymore.
.......



Later on we went to meet Jim and when I saw him I looked at him pleadingly for understanding because I know he has lost his parents. Later I think how cruel that was of me, but at that moment I was so desperate for understanding that I did not see that. I don't remember what he said to me but suddenly I realised I had left my hugely pregnant sister all alone and I had to go to her.


.......
She tells me they have decided that the funeral will be the next day, because if they waited an extra day, they would be having it on my birthday. They want me to stay in Melbourne with her because she cannot fly and it is too far anyway. I agree but I will wish so much that I hadn't.
.......


What sort of daughter doesn't go to her own father's funeral?

I don't remember ever crying.

On my birthday I didn't want to go out but S insisted. When we got there I couldn't do it, instead I spent the evening on the side of the road in the back of Jim's truck with the dogs, while everybody partied on watching some band in some pub in some suburb in some city called Melbourne.