Ccoming Home

Coming Home

When I was growing up I didn’t think I liked my family. I know it would surprise a lot of people to hear that said, not because you have to like your family, because if they knew my parents, they would understand, but rather from the point of someone saying it aloud. There were only three of us, my parents and myself.

I was in a constant state of embarrassment. I suppose that from birth to when I was able to understand what was going on, it didn’t matter. I can’t even remember those years. I might have even enjoyed my childhood then, but when I knew what my parents were like, I wished every day that I had been born into a different family.

I use to pray some nights that God would be kind to me and when I woke up in the morning I would have a new mum and dad. I liked my dog and even the cat, so they could stay the same.

Each morning when I got up and went into the kitchen I looked around, hopeful, and was disappointed that they were still the same people as when I went to bed.

Why couldn’t my mum and dad be educated? A lot of my friends’ parents had good jobs and earned a lot more money than mine did. Joanne’s dad was a doctor and Brian’s dad was the principal at our school. My dad worked in the factory, driving a forklift and he wore orange overalls with a fluorescent sleeve less vest over that. My Mum worked in the factory too. I mean she did work in the office but so what.

I hated that we were poor. My parents said it didn’t matter as long as we had a ‘roof over our head and food on the table’. I hated that saying too. I hated a lot of things. Sometimes I even hated my family. I suppose in a way, I was ashamed of them.

I never wanted to go out with my parents. I didn’t like the way they looked, how they dressed. My mum’s clothes were too tight. Soft rolls of fat would hang over the top of her skirt and bounce as she walked. I didn’t think she noticed, but if she did, it didn’t matter to her. I used to ask her why she didn’t buy a bigger skirt and she would reply “a new skirt isn’t my priority”. She used to wear the same outfit day after day – albeit that the clothes were always clean and neatly pressed. I didn’t care about that. I wanted her to look ‘classy’ like some of the other mums. I had never known my mum to go to the hairdressers – her shoulder length hair, when not hanging down was tied up into a little knot on the top of her head. One of my friend’s mums had really short hair with blonder streaks. I didn’t think it would suit my mum, but it would be better than what she had. “I will go to the hairdressers all the time when I leave home” I vowed.

My dad, on the other hand was tall and too skinny. His pants quite often looked like they hung on him and sometimes they were too short and his socks showed. I guess it wasn’t his fault that no matter what he ate; he couldn’t put any weight on. My mum and dad needed to swap a few of their genes around!

I would walk on ahead of them, and hoped that no one thought we were together, a family.

My dad would call out “Hey lassie, don’t you want to know your mum and dad then?” and I really wanted to shout back “No I don’t, look at you”

They were loud too, often feeling the need to shout instead of talk. My mum’s voice could be heard above everyone else’s when she was talking to mothers outside the school gate, and her laugh reminded me of a wild animal, maybe a hyena.

Even though it really irritated me, other people mustn’t have minded it, as there was always a lot of laughter when my mum was there.

They were too strict. I wanted some freedom and to be able to do what my friends were allowed to do. “You will not hang out at the local shopping centre with your mates, and I don’t care what any of the other parents say, because the answer is no. “I hate you both” I would say through clenched teeth and go and sulk somewhere.

“You are the only parents who don’t understand what fun means. You are so boring” I would yell at them, slamming the door of my bedroom for extra effect.

Their idea of fun was taking the dog for a walk through the hills near our house, bringing a homemade picnic with us. To be fair, they would always ask if I would like to take a friend along, but I would rather put up with them by myself. I didn’t want my friends to know about these things. Once up in the hills I would find a shady tree to sit under, on my own and think how much fun my life was going to be once I left home.

My friends would come to school after the weekend, telling me about the movie they had been to or the restaurant they had eaten at. When they asked what I had done and I told them, they seemed to think I had a lot of fun. “I love picnics” some of them would say, “But we never go on them”. I just thought ‘Are you kidding?’

I would much rather be at one of my friends’ houses rather than my own. Sometimes I would tell a lie and say that we were doing a group- assignment at one of their houses but really I was just there to soak up, what seemed to me, the way a normal house should be. The after school snacks left me feeling as if I had just been to a party. No apple and a small cheese sandwich at these places. Spread out on the table cloth was an array of colour and texture that left me wide eyed. Cupcakes, finger sandwiches, little sausage rolls and of course lemonade. I would leave their house to the smell of a piece of lamb and potatoes roasting in the oven, and wish that was what my dinner would be.

When I arrived home, school bag on my shoulder, and tell my mum what I had just eaten, she would say “I could make some cupcakes next time you bring a friend over after school”. And I would answer “No don’t bother; you need the right plates and cups and saucers to go with them”. I remember my mum looking at me and not saying anything. So I added, “And it’s so embarrassing that we don’t even have a television. Everyone but us has a TV”. I would go into my bedroom to start my homework with the smell of chicken soup coming from the stove top.

Nothing seemed to ever change at home. Life just went on. No money for extras, such as holidays or new furniture or even a car, it was still picnics; the old velvet couch was spot cleaned and how we got to places was walking or the bus! A dull and totally unfair life is what I thought I had.

Then when I was old enough, I got a job after school in the local bakery. It was two afternoons a week from 4-6.30. I had some money of my own to save up for when I left home, and day old cakes and savouries….it seemed like heaven.

My mum and dad were happy for me and never expected any of the money I earned from the bakery. They were very happy with jam doughnuts and vanilla slices. Just as well. I needed every penny for getting away one day. I got to talk to ‘real people’ as I called them at the bakery. I would watch the fashionable mothers come in with youngsters dressed in the latest children’s fashion and hear them asking “Now what would you like sweetie – a jam doughnut or a biscuit with sprinkles on?” Whatever they said they wanted, they got.  

The longer I worked at the bakery, the more disinterested in my parents I became. I would come home from school, throw my school bag in my bedroom, change out of my school uniform and walk to work. My dinner would be ready and waiting for me when I finished work and my parents liked to sit with me and ask about my day, so I would eat, answering questions that were asked with as little detail and interest as possible and then go and study.

 I could hear my parents from my room, talking and laughing as if everything was normal, probably thinking that this was how teenagers behaved and that I would grow out of the phase.

Even though they had lovingly brought me into the world and looked after me well, and I begrudgingly admitted they were good parents, I wanted more – a life like a lot of my friends had. I wanted what I didn’t have - material things mostly, and freedom. Was it selfish? I don’t know, but that’s how I felt.

I finished school and completed a business course. I had always thought I would do nursing but I just wanted to go away. I continued to work in the bakery, putting away my pay, and then I left home. This is what I had dreamt of.

We said our ‘goodbye’s’ at the airport. I did cry and of course my mum and dad were upset at their only child was leaving, but I felt ‘buzzy’ with excitement. I had never been on a plane before and although anxious to get on it, I was a little nervous. We stood around chatting for a while and then had a ‘group hug’, my mother calling out in her usual loud voice “Let’s have a big squishy group hug”. How embarrassing. I promised to write and keep in touch. My dad gave me a final hug and whispered in my ear “We will always be here for you”. I didn’t say anything to him, but smiled.

It doesn’t take long for the euphoria that comes with living an independent life, of getting a job and spending your money, buying what you want when you want, to wear off. When you realised you had spent the rent for the week, even though you did promise yourself you would put it aside, and it was toast for nearly every meal. All those clothes you had dreamt of wearing one day were there staring at you from every shop window and beckoning you to come in, try and buy, and you did, but too many times and for too much money.

It’s difficult to make friends in a new environment but after a while working in a large company office, I started to get to know people and with that came the fun I had craved. Life was good and I was enjoying it. But unfortunately I began to enjoy it a bit too much. All of the things that I had no experience with I wanted to know about. The drinking – not just a couple of drinks after work, but the excessive drinking. Starting off slowly but revving up to being so drunk I could hardly walk home. Of course when my parents would ring me up to see how I was, they had no idea what I was doing. “Oh you deserve a drink or two with your friends at the weekend after a hard week of working” my dad would offer. He didn’t know it was every night and much more than a couple of drinks.

The drinking led to other habits – worse – and much more expensive. But that was what I was here for; to have fun, and I tried to believe it was as I dragged myself out of bed some mornings to get ready for work. My work was starting to suffer and I got dragged into the boss’s office on a couple of occasions. I was on a ‘three strikes and you’re out’ policy and I had one left. I didn’t have much interest in work anymore. Office work didn’t fulfil me and as I was still stoned in some way, on most days, it seemed even less inviting to be sitting in front of a computer.

I got behind with my rent, but couldn’t convince any of my ‘friends’ to lend me the money, so I had to borrow it. The borrowing is easy – there is a line of people a mile long willing to lend, but the paying back isn’t so easy. These people are your best buddies for five minutes, but when it comes to paying them back, they are nasty and uncompromising. I was in a spiral of ‘getting nowhere’ and falling fast.

My parents were planning a trip to come and see me, and each time it was mentioned I made an excuse for them not to come. I was away for the weekend with my lovely group of friends, or I had been invited by one of them to their parents’ house in the country. “We are so relieved that you have made such nice friends” they would say, “We were so worried when you left home”.

I thought about my mum and dads faces if they saw the way I was living. My cupboards and fridge were virtually empty. I couldn’t afford to buy much food. A few tins of beans, milk and bread were what I mostly ate. My pay went on catching up on what I owed, paying rent, and of course my habits. I would love some of my mum’s fresh sandwiches and cut up fruit…..

Not eating well, drinking to excess, smoking and worse, took its toll, and in the winter I got sick.

I lay in bed in my stark little flat, with no heating, and cried, wondering where all my ‘friends’ were when I needed them. I felt so alone and just wanted my mum and dad. I was so tired and cold. Shivering and clutching my hot water bottle, I could smell my mum’s delicious chicken soup, picturing the big metal put simmering on the stove top.

I had plenty of time to think. Through the haze of forced withdrawal I realised that I missed home. How I felt about it when I was young were my true feelings at the time, but I’ve realised that a lot of cravings or needs in life are just superficial. What did it matter what my parents looked like of how much money they earned. I was loved and cared for unconditionally.

I had needed to get away and experience living the kind of life I had always thought I would enjoy. It actually wasn’t me. I was a simple girl at heart.

I returned home to a loving welcome, open arms and a clean and warm bedroom. My father told me that they knew I was unhappy, they could tell my from voice, and all the stories about weekends away with friends, hadn’t convinced them. “Do you think we were always old?” my dad asked jokingly.  They had two tickets booked for a trip to visit, and maybe rescue me, but I had arrived home first.

I sat at the familiar red and white Formica dining room table, on a vinyl chair that matched

 and ate a bowl of hot chicken soup with sandwiches. I looked at the velvet lounge and thought of how comfortable it was to lie on, I listened to my mother telling some of her stories about her many friends, in a loud and raucous voice but I didn’t care. These were happy and kind people, my parents. And then I noticed a television in the corner of the room and I smiled.