» I'm your biggest Fan

My mum
before anyone laughs - I'll apologise now for lack of funnies because it's actually a fairly not funny, not stalkerish tale at all.

My dad was diagnosed with Laryngeal cancer when I was wee, only 5 years old. Over the next three years he went through countless operations and radiotherapy sessions, trying to get rid of it only to be told it had come back. Twice.

He's still alive and kicking and has been "Cancer free" for the last 9 years.

But throughout the time he was sick my mother kept me and my siblings together, making sandwiches for our lunch boxes, getting us to school on time, just being there and keeping us functioning when we needed her most. She hugged us when we were scared and my first memory of going to visit dad was horrifying... tubes coming out everywhere, beeping from the monitors, my dad lying there looking like death warmed up.
And she still hugged us and understood when we giggled the first time dad said "hello" - using what we affectionately christianed "Burp talk" (to this day I can probably burp talk better then most boys).

But yes. My mum is my biggest hero cos she kept us all sane and together and coping. She never once broke down in front of us kids even though I know she did cry behind the bedroom door at night. She was strong and brave and I'll be lucky if I become half the woman she is.

/end soppyness

No apologies for length but I have a feeling it was all a bit much for her to cope with sometimes..

EDIT: would like to add that I'm 17 now and the sacrifices she made (which I am not going into) are enough to make me cry like a baby now that I think on them properly. /wipes eyes.
(Thu 16th Apr 2009, 22:02, More)

» Absolute Power

This morning, a boy I know from school was put in his grave far too early.
He felt so completely overwhelmed by the shit in his life.

He crashed his car earlier this year, and almost killed his best friend in the process. Yes, he was drunk, and it was his fault. He was being prosecuted by the parents of his best friend.
Last week, his girlfriend dumped him.

On Monday, he killed himself.

It all sounds so melodramatic, I know. But the thing is, the boy I knew at school, was not a loser. He was funny, cheeky, never had a bad thing to say about anybody. He was extraordinarily popular. He loved a good joke and a piss up. Out of all the people I know - he was one of the last I would have picked to commit suicide.

Today was his funeral. Over two hundred and fifty people turned up. His friends, classmates. The boys he coached at football. The parents of his best friend. His family. His teachers.

All of these people loved him. Yet, when he needed us, he felt he couldn't reach out to us. And that is a fucking tragedy. There is an absolute power in just knowing someone. There is the ability to let the people we know, how we feel about them, and that they're always able to come talk to us. That they can trust us. That we can help them when they need help. That sometimes, all they need to do is turn up, and they can have all the love and support they need to get through the shit in their life and make it through to the otherside.

Bill, we failed you, and we can't bring you back. I'm so sorry that you felt so alone, and wish I'd known you better. I hope you're in a better place, and that you aren't suffering anymore.
You are loved still, and we do miss you.
Rest in Peace.
(Sun 11th Jul 2010, 14:15, More)

» Bullies

Not very funny.
and probably long. So if you're not in the mood for long and not funny - don't bother reading. Don't bitch - don't complain - just properly don't read it.

okay.

When I was a wee Vampyrekitten, only 7 or 8 years old, was when it first started. I was one of the "bright" kids who got to read the "big kids" books and thus was horribly unpopular because of it. I could read before I started school and some of the other kids didn't like that.
I was excluded from games and parties (which, while completely insignificant now - meant a huge deal back then. I'd hear everybody talking about Mollie's birthday and all the fun games they got to play and how Sam won a teddy bear etc, all the while being looked sideways and laughed at), pushed around and generally ignored.
I remember one particularly notable incident where we had show and tell and when I got up for my turn everybody laughed at my very loved and scruffed Humphrey (who has graced this QTOW before) and called me a baby. Then another boy (I think his name was seth?) kicked me in the back when I sat down, just because he could and he didn't like Humphrey.

I did what all "babies" do - I cried. I couldn't understand why they didn't like me so much. I was incredibly shy as a kid, had glasses, so naturally got called four eyes and such but I just couldn't grasp why they hated me so much. I never spoke much unless people spoke to me first, never hit anyone, never called anyone names, never did anything to anybody.

I moved a few years later, down from multicultural Melbourne where last names like mine weren't fussed over, to monocultural Warrnambool. It was cold. It was wet.
I was nine and still wearing glasses. I had a woggy name. I was pale and Dutch and I liked pickles and cheese in bread for lunch (still do!).
My shit of a brother decided to introduce a few of the choicier "nicknames" I'd had up in Melbourne into the school population to make himself look cool.
So it all began again, getting nastier and more vicious as I moved up through school. I began swimming - and I was pretty good at it. I began playing soccer - and I kicked the boys butts. I began playing netball and I was okay at it. But in every sport I tried to play - they already had their friendship groups - and they made it abundantly clear how much they *didn't* need me and how much I wasn't *wanted* around.
In my final year of primary school, I was still the oddball. I still had glasses, read stacks of books, ate woggy food. I was relentlessly bullied every single day by three girls who were determined to make me miserable. When I started growing breasts, they called me a whore. When I got pimples they called me pizza face. Nerd. Geek. Dictionary. Fugly. Freak. It. Every single day. I was asked if I'd ever picked anyone up, if I'd ever let a guy fuck me for money.

One day I cracked. I'd been in tears the whole day because people kept stealing my book, snapping my bra strap, calling me names, passing notes about me around the whole class and then "accidentally" showing them to me. When the end of the day came I slammed my chair on top of the table, except I gave it a little too much force and it went flying off the other side and hit one of my main antagonists in the back of the leg. And I didn't even say sorry. I just said "fuck you" and walked out, bawling.

Highschool was pretty much the same.
Went there, incredibly shy, in the accelerated program but even there I wasn't accepted. People still bullied me - my "best friend" (who has also been mentioned here before), bullied me to the point where I was pretending to be sick so I didn't have to come to school. We had a fight which culminated in her getting her 16 year old friends to threaten to kill me, bash me, break my nose etc etc.
I didn't cope very well. At the time I was also really struggling with my sexuality and the double stress just made me spiral down into depression. I did some very stupid things to myself.
I stopped playing sport because people on my own teams were looking for excuses to bash me up (from memory I suffered several blood noses, many dead arms/legs, quite a few net/basket/volley/soccer balls/hockey pucks to the face). I eventually refused to participate in sport classes altogether. I think I participated in maybe three classes in the last 4 years of high school.

Last year I was friends with a girl called Sheridan. I have no problems in naming her because, quite frankly, she is a bitch. We had maths together and became close friends. She was the first person I came out to. She threw it in my face.
One day we were friends - the next we were nothing. She hated me. She spread rumours about me, wouldn't let me talk to mutual friends, constantly belittled me if I tried to talk to her about it, completely did a 180 degree turn. I was confused and hurt and horribly gutted. She was pretty much the only friend I had - and on a single whim - a single, stupid, petty whim, she decided she hated me - literally over night.

Over the years I was systematically and deliberately bullied and bullied and bullied. I was their chosen victim. You know how there's always that one kid - that one person who is too shy to stand up for themselves, too scared to say anything, thus leading that one kid to be the vent for *everybody's* spleen?

I was that kid.
I was that kid and it still affects me. I am too shy to talk to people I don't know because I don't want them to judge me. I am too shy to say "Hey how's it going?" to somebody I want to get to know because I'm afraid they don't want to talk to me. I can't string a sentence together properly in front of people I don't know - because I get that nervous.

I don't wear glasses any more - I don't eat woggy foods - but I still get bullied. Every Day.
And I cope with it now. Don't say anything, don't react, just try to put it all behind me. I ignore the stares, the whispers, the outright bitchy comments.

But it still doesn't make it hurt any less.
(Wed 13th May 2009, 14:00, More)

» Pubs

The moths flew out of my wallet,
and I looked up at the barman, who was looking at me in pity. Grimacing, I turned away and decided to nurse what was left of my ale. The overcrowded bar smelled of cigarettes, spilled beers, body sweat and the faint trace of a woman's perfume. The taste was acrid at the back of my throat. The noise of everyone laughing and talking and joking was almost too much to bear, a dull roar I couldn't focus enough on to listen to any one conversation out of the dozens that were going on around me.

I raised my glass to my lips and sipped slowly, closing my eyes momentarily before opening them and letting my head hang forward to stare at my hand wrapped protectively around my ale.

"Two Strongbows please" said a soft voice over to the right from me. I concentrated on what was left of my ale, watching the bubbles on the head of the beer slowly rise from the bottom of the glass to the top, bursting at the top with a fizz that was inaudible in the noisy pub.
A glass of cider was pushed in front of my line of vision. I looked up blearily and saw the barman nod at a girl who was looking at me with an odd expression on her face.

I tried to figure it out. She was smiling, but it wasn't the smile of someone who was enjoying themselves - it was more like she saw straight through me, to the deepest corners of my mind, where the darkest parts of myself were struggling to break free and consume me.
Like she suddenly knew everything about me - but still wanted to do something to brighten my day.

I hated it. Resented it. I wasn't a charity case. I felt anger flare briefly inside me, yet it died instantly when I looked at her eyes. Her beautiful, gray eyes. They were worn and tired, and looked like they were brimming with secrets, things she wanted to say - but never could. There was an incredible amount of sadness behind those eyes.

I suddenly understood the reason behind the cider. Something of myself I could see in her eyes, and I knew she could see something of herself in mine.
I raised my glass, toasted her, watched as she did the same, and then we slowly quaffed from the glasses, and I felt the ice cold cider slip down my throat. Throughout, her eyes never left mine. I couldn't notice anything but her eyes, not her pale skin, rounded face, thick blond hair. They were all just blurred into the background.

I finished my drink and stood up. Slowly, I walked carefully over to her. Aware that there were people around me, and that the barman was watching our silent exchange out of the corner of his eye, I simply lent down and let my lips brush against hers for the briefest of moments, feeling the warmth of her hand sinking into my waist where she'd placed it, smelling the scent of her perfume. Roses, I thought, or maybe freesias.

I straightened, looked at her, felt a hot stinging in my eyes before walking out of the bar into the cool air outside to sink against the wall of the pub. I closed my eyes and felt a small, fine hand slip into mine and smelt the scent of her perfume on the air.

"Thank you." I breathed, squeezing her hand.

This is the first time I've ever done this....so I'm sorry if it's not good enough :(
(Sun 8th Feb 2009, 12:06, More)

» I'm your biggest Fan

Again when I was a wee little Vampyrekitten
with lots of curly curly ringlets and bouncy bouncy jelly shoes (well I was a bouncy kid but I digress).

I LOVED Humphrey B Bear. Now I don't know if you brits have him but he is TOPS for a little kid. He was the bees knees, the big Kahuna, he was The man
All in all, he was a pretty cool six foot tall brown bear in a check waistcoat with a straw hat and a lovely big bow tie. He looked like this. I thought he was very very tops. He was a mute but I didn't care.

I had my own Humphrey B Bear toy and everything!

So one day, there's me, a wee little vampyrekitten, playing with my Humphrey B Bear and my "The Wiggles Big Red Car", and mum comes in all excited.
"Vampyrekitten! You'll never guess who I saw at the shops today!"
Indeed I did not have the faintest clue and told her that.
"Come on! We're going back to the shops!" Said mother. Duly - I picked up my faithful Humphrey B Bear (for he went EVERYWHERE with me) and we walked the half a block to the shops.

And THERE HE WAS.

Humphrey.
HUMPHREY B BEAR was in the shops half a block from MY house! He must have wanted to come say hi to me! He was dancing along to the music. But what was this? Some skinny tart blonde girl was dancing with him and talking to him!

I was crushed. I turned to my mum and cried my little heart out. She picked me up and carried me over, me still sniffling and clutching my toy Humphrey B Bear for all it was worth.

And then Humphrey gave me a balloon and a lollypop AND a hug.

And all was instantly right with the world.
(Fri 17th Apr 2009, 4:36, More)