Friday, March 6, 2009

F R E E D O M

my mum grew up in a domestic violence household in housing commission in western sydney and married some boring butchers son who decided to go in a draw with his touch footy mates to buy some cheap land in a farming area in outter western sydney. my mum decided to spend the thousands she was saving to travel the world on building a home on this land. the area i grew up in and where my mum lived for like over 25 years didnt exist as a suburb until the 80s. the area was quickly populated with young poor families who couldnt believe they could finally liv the australian dream.

my mum quit her callcentre job about a year before i was born. she made a friend when waiting in line at a doctors when i was a few months old. she also befriended my grade one teacher. she also had a friend shed know since highschool. she didnt really hav many friends. she once told me that my father wouldnt speak to her much and she thought that this must be because he has lots of deep thought running through his mind, it took her years to realise he wasnt thinking anything. my mum always knew he was cheating on her but i guess it all blew up when i was seven. the police came over a few times to stop fights. they were offically divorced when i was eight.

we never really had much money like everyone else who lived in that area. we were living "under the poverty line" for a few years and hav been on centrelink since 1996 but we owned a home so it was ok. my mum got a job in the army. when i was 10 i told a girl at my school that when i grow up i wanna live with friends, she said "you cant live with friends, you have to live with your husband" and i said "but i dont think i'll get married" she very seriously responded by saying "but, you have to get married, thats what everyone does when they get older".
in year six i begged my mum to let me go to an all girls school near the mountains, not the derro local highschool. and althou i still copped lots of homophobic/sexist/racist/just dumb shit at that school i cannot even comprehend how i would hav ever survived at the local school.

when i was 13 my suburb got lots of media attention as lots of the animals at the local highschools agplot had been raped/parts of the school had been burned down. a few years later there was more attention towards the media dubbed "st (suburb name here) rapist". there were an average of 3 reported sexual attacks a week for about two months. most of these on young women in early hours of the morning. i guess this is a good example of what life was like in my suburb.
if you were a girl you did not leave your house alone after sun set. once i was walking home at 11pm on a friday with my brother and the cops pulled us over and questioned us as to why we were outside.
also the last busses that went to the train station were at 7pm.

BASICALLY LIVING THERE WAS FUCKED UP AND SHIT
AND SOOO DEPRESSING

and last month my mum sold that house.
the money she sold it for cannot buy another house, not even an apartment in a good area but the army is paying half her rent for her to live in ROZELLE!!!
now she can walk to the shops, walk to public transport, go somewhere in under an hour!!, make friends, do fun things, be surrounded by positive stuff, have a life!!!!

ANYWAY WE ARE FREE
MY MUM AND MY BROTHER CAN BE HAPPY AND NOT LIVE IN THAT FUCKIN SHIT HOLE ANYMORE


i feel like this is a really incomplete story of my life, her life, life in that suburb.

3 comments:

stickers said...

this is the best thing ive read in ages im so glad you wrote it, its fucking so good

Remix Remix said...

your story is amazing

ROBOTS said...

ACCESS IS AGENCY