On visiting hell - reposted from 2007

The first time she went missing I was on the phone to some nurse, I wanted to be the one asking questions but the nurse was so very slow, quizzing me about information I didn't want to give and stalling on telling me anything medical at all. Later I wondered. "What if she had been faster?" "What if I had just called triple 0 instead?...."

We ran to the car and swung the headlights everywhere we could think then we went up the streets and down them right out to the highway. We couldn't see her anywhere so then we wondered if she had been at home all the time, if we had somehow missed her? Could we have? We didn't ask again once the car reached the top of the driveway because there she was, coming out of her flat all smiles and asking for her friend. She didn't believe me when I said her friend wasn't with us and as relief flooded me we led her into her bedroom and helped her put her pyjamas on. I grabbed the bright blue long sleeved flanelette set for her. She yelled at me, where was the top? where was her bed? Where were her friends? My hands were shaking, we got her into bed and gave her a basin incase she had an accident. Later I wondered if I should have just stuck my fingers down her throat right then and been done with it.

She asked me to take her to the toilet then when I got her back to bed, she closed her eyes and it was only seconds before she seemed to mutter in her sleep.

Upstairs we sat in silence, my husband and I, and the tv droned on enough to calm me. It might have been 10 minutes but it wouldnt have been anymore before I decided I should check on her again. My husband was grabbing the blankets as we had decided it was best we spent the night down stairs with her.

I guess I wasn't really surprised when I found her bed was empty. This time I knew there was no mistake. She was gone.

We ran to the car again, not stopping to tell the boys a thing, we thought for sure that this time we would find her, that she couldn't have got that far. We drove and shouted and peered desperately into the darkness. We checked as far as we thought she could have got before we again doubted ourselves and rushed back home. I ran upstairs while S searched her flat again. I banged on the boys doors and begged for their help. We called the neighbours over and they began searching too, we wondered if she was hiding somewhere in the garden after all, or under their house or in another neighbours yard, or, or, or.....

I checked the floor, under the bed, in the bathroom, everywhere I could think of for her blue pyjamas but they were gone. Then I looked for her favourite shoes and for missing outfits. Nothing seemed to be gone. This meant my daughter was barefooted out somewhere in the night wearing nothing but her blue flannelette pyjamas.

My husband called the police then while my neighbour and I drove around again. We went out to the highway and past the big resort. I felt my skin prickle as I imagined her floating in a golf course water hazard or bleeding and dying after being hit by a car. I couldn't believe she could have reached out of our search zone unless she had been picked up in car. I knew she had no phone or any way of contacting her friends so if she had been picked up it had to have been by a stranger. That just sent me back to searching closer to home. She had to be somewhere close I thought and when the police woman rang back to say that they had more important things to worry about and we were probably worrying about nothing I wanted to believe her far more than she was able to convince me.

When time passes sometimes it is as if it has turned to molassas. I walked around and around the garden, looking underneath, beside, behind...underneath, beside, behind....underneath beside behind. My feet just kept moving, trudging through the slow syrup of frustration, searching again and again. My husband was out in the car somewhere. He came and he left, friends called to say they were looking too. We called her friends though we knew it was impossible that she could be with them. Ink called his schoolfriends and asked those who knew her to keep an eye out. It may have been about 11pm, it couldnt have been much later. We had been searching for her for nearly two hours. I could not understand where she could have gone. I wanted to panic and scream and cry but I just kept walking and walking. I was carrying both the home phone and my mobile in my hands, I strayed too far and I home phone cut out, I checked the neighbours garden again and again and again. I prayed. I felt like I was in hell. My hell was dark and hollow, I couldn't see into the shadows and as the darkness engulfed me I thought my heart was a deflated balloon, I could barely breathe.

Then my mobile rang. It was my son. She had called my husband. She was alive.

She had run six kilometres to the only nightclub in town. She didn't know how she had got there and had only come to when she has asked the bouncer to let her in and looked past him to see people staring at her. The bouncer told her that she couldn't go in wearing no shoes. She looked down and saw she was barefoot and wearing pyjamas.

She ran out of there and into the only open shop nearby. A restaurant. The owner let her use the phone. I guess we owe him more than even he may realise.

Ecstacy & alcohol. Peer pressure and stupidity. I know who gave her the drugs, I know she was too drunk to even know she was taking them. I know I want to call the police and get the stupid little arsehole locked up for life. I know that won't happen but I on Saturday night for the longest 2 hours since my life began, I thought my daughter was dead and now she is downstairs saying that she wishes she was and I am not sure I have ever felt so useless and angry and so very, very sad.

She told me later tht it wasn't ecstacy she took. It was something called 'Pink Skippy' Later still she told me what she took had been laced with acid...maybe she just told me that because she thinks that is what I want to hear? I don't know but the fact that she still seems to think it is reasonable to be taking pills she has no idea/or have any chance of knowing what they contain just mortifies me. "But my friends know what hey are doing"...Right..great!!! I am her mother, she listens to nothing that I say.....Four weeks ago (12 Mar 07) I found out she took a pill again. I was in shock fr a week, now I just feel numb and f*cking terrified

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.

Today is a big one....

It's funny how often I post in my head on this blog and yet nothing ever makes it to the screen, the words just swim away, lost forever in the ocean of my mind.

I wonder if anyone reads this anymore? It doesn't really matter, when it all comes down to it, my blog is for me, a little diary of my random thoughts and nowadays an occasional log on the momentous occasions in my life.

Today is a big one....

Today my baby boy graduates from high school! My beautiful, sensitive, intelligent, kind hearted super son is finishing high school and leaving home.

He could barely talk when we sent him to school for year one, we thought he might have some form of dislexia or deafness. He couldn't keep up with the other kids and he barely said a word. We sent him to a speech therapist and we worried about him constantly. When we tore him out of school halfway through grade 2 and dragged him around the world to live in Scotland, due to the different starting times for the school year, he had to go straight into year 3 over there. His teacher turned out to be a saint and set about making sure our struggling son made it through every day and it is thanks to her that his speech improved, his brain woke up and he became interested and engaged in the world around him. She is also responsible for the hint of a scottish accent that even after 10 years back in Australia still has people constantly asking him where he is from.

In just over a month he will be back in Scotland and I should make the effort to find out if that teacher is still working because it'd be nice if he could visit his old school again. Not only is my "little boy" finishing school and getting ready to move to the city for university in February but he is also flying alone to Europe for 5 weeks! I am gobsmacked really. He has friends in Munich who he is staying with for the bulk of the time, but is also flying to Edinburgh to see some old friends there and Ireland as well to see some relatives, all at 17! I am proud of his bravery but given that he has barely been away from home before for more than a week at a time I am rather overwhelmed by the enormity of this trip. For christsakes he was homesick during his week in the snow in September! How will he survive without me?.... Clearly it's me who's going to be the one not surviving!

Last night after the awards ceremony at his school where he got dux of geography(hope that means he won't get lost overseas) we went to the Noodle bar for some eats. One of the school brothers approached us there and made a point of telling us how much he liked and respected our son. I wonder if he knew that he was gay? I have really appreciated the kind and understanding environment that his catholic school has given him, the support they have shown as he has remained determined to be himself. One thing about my boy, NOTHING sways him from staying true to himself. I adore him for that.

So this is a big day. Will I cry at some point? Thinking of my gorgeous little boy as I trussed him up for his first day of school in January 1996. Will I get a little teary tonight as he dons his bow tie and pointy shoes and hits the dance floor at the grad ball? My baby, all grown up...

Next year he wants to study architecture at University in Brisbane. I am not sure if he will get in, it's a really popular course so the standards have to be very high. If he misses out he will probably do a BA - Geography. The thing is I think he is more suited to the geography course, I think he is too young to make such a big decision anyway but he is determined so i will let him be and let him find his own way. That's the best thing I can do for him, I think.

Meanwhile Wonder Daughter called me last night on top of the world. She just had one of her 1st year designs paraded in the Grad year fashion parade and after the show was over was approached by a Melbourne retailer wanting to stock her "range" She doesn't have one yet but she will. She has always had such fantastic responses to her work. She has chopped and changed in so many areas of her life so much over the last 3 years but the one thing that has remained contant for her is her passion for designing. It's times like these I think she will actually make a name for herself.

I shouldn't be sitting here writing anymore. Today the new kitchen is going in, or starting to go in at least. The house has been in shambles for weeks as we paint and hammer and scrub. It's due to go on the market next weekend....We are selling our home....I think?

Will we go ahead and sell? Will Super Son get into the course he wants at Uni? Will he be all right overseas for 5 weeks without me? Will I cope without him? Will Wonder Daughter and her lovely Mick Jagger lookalike boyfriend stay as happy as they have been? Will S's parents finally stop torturing him and will he start smiling again? Will I stop stuffing around renovating everything I can get my hands on and get a real job?

These and other questions in 2009...roll on new year...

Home on the land....my mother would be proud.

This trip has been exactly what I needed. Out here I am so completely at home, all the bits of me seem to fall into place and I feel truly happy. There are of course so many memories, happy and sad. I can feel my father in the un-renovated rooms, down by the shed where he fiddled with machinery or by the empty creek where we used to sit together and fish. My grandmother is in the air, in the crisp sheets that we carried in from the line together or in the garden where she traced the teddy bear rhyme around my palm. Four generations of my family have now called this home, have let their feet become caked with mud while catching huge lobster sized yabbies from the dams or let the harsh dry scrub scratch their arms as they trekked up the the aboriginal cave in the hills. I had been told the hand paintings were gone, but it wasn't true. They are still there and I felt like singing with joy when I found them. It was enormous fun to show them to my Japanese guest, sharing something often makes it better I think. Super Son has enjoyed it too, I can tell, as slowly the tension of keeping his 'cool' face on eased and he has relaxed. He ran over the rainbow coloured rocks, the sheets of dry gum bark cracking crisply under his converse. He's going to need a new pair after this trip. I feel like I haven't seen him so animated in months.

I also found an aboriginal axe on the first morning here. I have been looking for one all of my life, I had just shown Ink the grooves in the sandstone down by the water hole and tried to explain to him that these grooves were made as the stone axes they used were sharpened, as we walked back towards the house over the ridge where I played so much as a child and felt such peace as a teenager an axe just lay on the ground in my path. Perhaps a cow had kicked it out of the soil, anyway it almost feels as if I was meant to find it, as if the land finally accepts me as it's offspring. Ha, that sounds stupid but thats just how it is.

Today is our last full day out here. I hope to catch some more yabbies, maybe climb the highest mountain so we can see one hundred miles around us (almost), perhaps we will go and collect nuts from the huge Queensland nut tree in the 'park', right now I am taking the binoculars and checking the water tanks for my brother. He is happily on the coast with his family so perhaps for the first time in over twenty years, this place really does feel like my home. I feel lucky.

On the phone my daughter tells me that she is moving to Sydney very soon. She is going down in a few weeks to try and find a job, I feel a little sad but resigned that maybe this is something she feels she has to do. Maybe I will come to Sydney for a visit soon? I can't think of any greater contrast than this place and Sydney.

Dream

The light tap on my door merges with my dream and I know I have to leave my dream behind and wake myself up, I pull myself out of it, it is like dragging myself out of a pool of molasses, a sweet laziness which is warm to lie in but uncomfortable to leave. My sister has made me a cup of coffee. I want to be awake to speak with her before she leaves, but my brain is slow, still drenched with the heaviness of my dream. I listen instead, trying to make the right responses but my mind is still in the dream. My daughter was there, she said she was having a party because she is going away. She didn't invite me, and I am sad because she is leaving. I want to get to the party so that I can see her, but it is too far away and now my sister wants me to drink coffee with her and I am going to miss the party. It will be over before I get there, so I sit there sipping and I make the right responses.

Another World

She is in another world, my daughter, she looks at me with hatred and I can see no compassion in her eyes. She says she wishes I were dead. I try to smile and move through the day being warm to everybody, when inside I am crumpled and dying. I don't know what to do anymore, I thought I was doing the right thing being angry at her for breaking the law, but it does not feel right at all. Outside it is like any other day, the sun is shining and the birds are singing, but inside it feels like the world is ending.

Apron strings

A few weeks ago I wondered how many miles it was to the snow, as I sat here shivering and smelling it on the breeze. My daughter will have arrived there now, after 1600 miles on the bus. She has never been this far away from me before, I feel the stretch of the apron strings like an uncomfortable muscle strain. I sleep fitfully worrying about her and the worst scenarios play out in my dreams. I want to laugh at myself for my silly fretting but I realise I have to let her go, it will be more comfortable for both of us.