Come to think of it, my grandmother really did have the most amazing and beautiful things. Things that are probably priceless by today's value. The vast amount in her collection is all a blur to me now, although as a child I was familiar with every single piece. Royal Doulton china sets, figurines, vases, clocks, sculptures, not to mention furniture that would have to be well and truly antique. The house itself was sold years ago, along with a huge amount of land. Acres of immaculate lawn, gardens manicured to perfection, gazebos, a bridge, stepping stones and a real life wishing well full of geraniums. My grandparents built a massive house in town, and moved into it along with their priceless artefacts and furniture. I didn't see the move, my father wasn't talking to my grandparents at the time - he was sore about the fact that they didn't give him the farm like he always thought they would. I never really even got to say goodbye to that place. For a little girl, it was the kind of garden you really could believe fairies lived in. It was an eden, surrounded by black soil plains filled with cotton, or rust red sorghum, or fields of barley looking like a rippling green carpet in the breeze. It was home to me, even though technically it wasn't my home. My time there was by far the happiest in my childhood. I miss that place, it was where I felt most safe in the world. At least until my father and my brother and I built a little house out the back. Then it turned into a nightmare. But for at least the first half of my childhood, it was my own enchanted world where I could be anybody, do anything, and just enjoy being a child.
I dont know what has brought on this bout of nostalgia for me. Its 3:30am in the morning and I am wide awake with no hope of sleeping. After lying in bed ruminating over these memories, I resigned myself to insomnia and got up, hoping that by doing so I could rid myself of this endless loop of memories. It wouldn't be so difficult if I had some kind of link to my grandparents, but I have none. They dont even know where I am, and I prefer to keep it that way. That sounds cruel and heartless, but unfortunately I have my reasons. My grandparents may be wealthy, but that doesn't mean they're healthy, at least not in terms of relationships. Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely ~Lord Acton~
It baffles me to think that out there I have a brother, a sister, a father, grandparents, an aunt, an uncle, four cousins and a stepmother who don't know a thing about me or my life. Unfortunately growing up, it was completely normal for my father to break off relationships at the drop of a hat whenever it was convenient to him, and then pick things right back up when he needed something. My grandparents and my father both assumed I would do the same to them when the time came for me to come crawling back on my hands and knees. They were wrong. I'd like to think I hold myself to a higher standard of living than that, and I guess in some ways that's true. I certainly treasure the relationships I do have, and I try really hard to go against the very strong current of my upbringing. Can we really rise above the environment that shapes so much of our worldview as children? I'd really like to think so, especially since one day in the hopefully not too distant future I'll be raising children of my own. It will be then that I will need to rise above what I witnessed as a child and do better. I admit that in my early years, before I met my husband and got married, I did kind of use my grandparents and their generosity to survive. I didn't really have much choice unfortunately. My father basically left me at uni with no money at all, and I've have to beg them for 50 bucks here and there, which they'd occasionally let me have. But in general, I lived on 15 bucks a fortnight from centrelink thanks to my stepmother earning too much money, and all because I didn't want to report that I couldn't go home because if I did that I was afraid they'd investigate my brother as well and I didn't want that to happen. So, my grandparents gave me money, bought me toiletries and washing powder etc, and eventually even bought me a car. And I was grateful, I truly was, because they stepped in where my father let me down. I knew though, in my heart of hearts, that I'd done exactly what my father had done his whole adult life - I had perpetuated this leech like mentality, and that shamed me.
I feel bad about taking their money, because it didn't work out. The money came with strings, and one of those strings was not marrying Brad. Another one was basically living the life they wanted me to lead, as a good little catholic girl living in Dalby working in an office or as a librarian or something (I know they wanted this because they even sent me newspaper clippings of such jobs out of the Dalby Herald while I was living in Warwick studying). They didn't like the idea of me doing youth work, or social work, or any such things - I'm not entirely sure why - and they certainly didn't approve of me being the main breadwinner in my house. According to them the man should be earning the money and the wife should be staying at home, and they couldn't stand the idea of Brad not working. At the time Brad had been laid off from a landscaping job, and was also beginning to show the signs of fibromyalgia which was really hard for him (not that we knew what it was at the time of course).
So why am I rambling about this at 4:00am in the morning? I wish I knew - what I do know is that I guess I miss having a connection to my childhood. I feel like I'm forgetting the little things, the smell of my grandmother's cooking, the sound of her mantle clock chiming every 15 minutes (I could tell the time in the middle of the night by those chimes), the cool feeling of stretching out on the loungeroom floor under a fan in summer and watching musicals on vhs...the smell of the grass when we're out in the yard under the hose...lemonade and watermelon after a long hot day.....gosh a million little things. And then there's nights like this when they all come flooding back to me - and so I don't sleep.
Until next time,
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