Destination Gratitude

I wake up twisting and turning in my bed. The morning light, faint and white, reaches for me from the window.

No. Not another day. Not more pretending everything’s okay, or yelling at my little sister, or slamming the bedroom door when Mum tells me I have to eat, to go to school – all the crap she thinks I need to do. But she doesn’t know. Doesn’t understand. I'm not going anywhere. I'm staying here till Granny comes to get me. My eyes swell with tears. 

No way. I rub my hand down my face, un-scrunching it, and glare at the window. I’m no cry-baby.

Outside the window, a couple of Indian Mynah birds hop around on their little yellow legs. I know they’re a pest, they kill off the native birds. But right now, they just look ridiculous, like chickens, or pigeons, with their tiny heads bobbing forward with each step; their yellow beaks match their legs. One of them starts chasing the other, and as they run they stop bobbing, instead holding their bodies upright, rigid. Now they don’t look stupid, they seem as if they know exactly what they’re doing. Purposeful, confident. They take off, one after the other. I wish I could take off. Right out of my stupid life.

The sheet is tangled around my legs. I grunt, trying to untangle myself from inside the bed. Sheet straightened, I curl up, pull the doona over my head, over my cold ears. Theo, the therapist Mum and Dad sent me to, says I should be more grateful for what I have. His creaky old man voice invades my head, ‘Be grateful that the bed is warm, Abby, that you have a bed.’

He suggested I write a ‘Gratitude Journal.’

As if.  

But after fighting with the sheet, I’m fully awake. And the birds have left. What the heck...

I snake my arm out into the cold, grab my diary and my snowman-shaped pen from the bedside table and snuggle back down into the warmth.

Alright Theo, you asked for it.

I grip the lumpy pen and start a new page:

ABBY’S (stupid) ‘GRATITUDE JOURNAL’

1.    I am SO grateful that Mum still talks to me. That she BOTHERS to tell me I’m lucky to have her, lucky she didn’t send me to live with Grandad on the farm with no internet and no shops for MILES (a very long way in old people speak.)

2.    I’m grateful that even though my little sister Sienna screamed so loud my ears hurt when I cut off her plait, the short hair looks sort of cute on her. (Maybe she needs to do a gratitude journal, because all she does is cry and say she can’t be a princess like Elsa anymore.)

3.    I’m grateful that I’m not an Indian Mynah bird, because everyone hates them. But they’re just doing what they do, surviving, like all the birds have since they were dinosaurs. The Mynah’s make funny purring sounds and a pathetic tweets, but I would have liked to be a dinosaur and GROWL at everyone that pisses me off.

4.    I’m grateful my best friend Charlie kept running past the principal’s office and making faces when I was being told off for yelling ‘stupid fart face’ at Janey Crystal when she said we should all make Father’s Day cards in Art class. 

5.    I’m grateful I’ve never cried in front of a teacher. Not even the principal (because Charlie’s faces were REALLY funny.)

6.    I’m grateful Mum said I didn’t have to make a Father’s Day card if I didn’t want to.

7.    I’m grateful Dad left, because I HATE him. 

8.    I’m grateful Charlie reckons my dad didn’t leave because he wanted a boy. He didn’t leave because I’m a girl, he left because my mum’s a girl. 

9.    I’m grateful I’m not a boy. Because I don’t like boys. Except Charlie. And he’s more like a girl, because he likes playing dress ups with me.

10. I’m grateful Dad doesn’t like wearing dresses. Because he’d just look stupid. He looks stupid anyway, with his long hair and his bright shirts. I wish I’d cut off his hair instead of Sienna’s. But she just kept snivelling SO much, saying she wanted Dad. So I had to do something.

11. I’m grateful Mum stayed with us and didn’t run away too. Ha! As if. Me and Sienna could get Uber Eats all the time and stay up late and not go to school. But Sienna’s a cry-baby, and she’d miss Mum. Even I might miss her after a while…

12. I’m not really grateful Dad left. I miss him. (But NO WAY will I tell Sienna.)

13. I’m grateful Dad left us for a BOYFRIEND and not a girlfriend, because at least he didn’t replace us with another girl. Mum says she’s okay with it, but I know she’s not – I sometimes hear her crying in the bathroom. Also, I hid outside the kitchen window when Aunty Lucy came to visit. She said Dad was a lying, cheating shit, and Mum said she was so, so right.

14. I’m grateful Mum drives me to see Theo, because she takes us to Maccas afterwards, and she always seems a bit happier. Probably because she doesn’t have to cook.

15. I’m grateful I met Dad’s new BOYFRIEND. Not!!! Ewwwwww. Soooooooooooo gross!! Plus, Charlie reckons grownups shouldn’t have BOYfriends and GIRLfriends. And he’s SO right – because they’re, like, GROWNUPS!

16. Thank goodness for Charlie, or I would go mad. REALLY, REALLY mad. Like screaming and yelling mad. Because everything else is all so crap.  

17. Except… I’m glad Grandad still calls me Abby the tabby and tickles me under the chin. Because Granny died last year, and I miss her big, warm hugs, and how she used to tell me about all the birds we’d see in her yard. Her favourites were the grey and brown striped wattle birds who’d hang upside down in the bright red bottle brush bushes and suck out the nectar, then they’d imitate the front door bell and Grandad would run to answer the door and me and Granny would laugh and laugh. But no more laughing now. She’s never coming back. Like Dad, I s’pose.

18. Maybe I should be grateful that I still get to see Dad? That he could still give me one of his big, suffocating bearhugs if I let him??? (Plus, his hugs are even better than Granny’s. But I won’t tell him that.)

19. I’m grateful I’m nearly finished this stupid ‘Gratitude Journal,’ because stupid Theo will stop stupidly nagging me about it and I can finally go and have some FUN. 

20. It’d be SO cool if Charlie could come and have a sleepover tonight. If he got here early enough, we could get out the bird book Granny and Grandad gave me, and see what we could find in the garden before it gets dark. I’ll get up and make Mum some muesli with blueberries before I ask. And I’ll leave the tea towel on the sink, so she knows I remembered to wash the berries.

21. But first, I’ll go and see if Sienna’s awake. Mum likes it when we get along. I’ll tell Sienna that if she stops sulking, I MIGHT let her play dress ups with me. ANd look for birds with me and Charlie…