Rose tinted memories

I refuse to regret anything that has happened throughout my life, as without it I wouldn't be who I am and where I am now, not that my life is great, actually it's far from it, but I have my kids, who are older teenagers, who I have a great relationship with, not to mention the 2, now adults I have taken on, when they were teenagers because like myself they had had a very shitty time.

Now in case you're not aware the brain tends to remember the good bits of a person's life, it's a classic trauma response in a bid to protect itself, it's the, 

Rose tinted memory effect

Now as I said before I can only think of one really happy memory including my dad as a very small child, I have more with my mum, but as I grew, so did her resentment.

Please don't get me wrong, her life was shit, I get it, but I was a child, if she couldn't stop my dad from getting pissed and sleeping around, I really don't know what I was meant to do!

I remember from a young age asking my mum to leave my dad, and as I got older, I'm guessing about age 10, I was pleading with her to leave him. Her answer was always the same, "I'm trying to get some money saved so we can be okay". This went on for years, all the while my mums depression deepening.

I remember one Saturday, I must of been about 10 years old, we had this old clapped out fiesta, this was at time when a household was lucky to have one car, and ours had a very unique exhaust noise.

So it's just after 3 in the afternoon, I know that because the estate social club used to shut at 3pm for a few hours on a Saturday, before the evening session started. There's my mum and me in the living room, and we hear this weird bang, rattle, we both get up as that's our car! 

We run out the door to watch my dad drive (i use that term loosely as he has been in the pub the last few hours, it's the early 1990's) away, to see him stop just up the road, just out of view from the house.

"SHOCK, HORROR"

We stand there watching the woman who lives a couple of doors down get in the car!

As you can imagine it was a fun afternoon in our house, 10 year old me trying to comfort a very upset and hysterical mum, oh the fun.

Unfortunately this wasn't a one off, it was i think the first time i realised what was going on though. I could go on about different women, we would be here forever however there's a few that have stuck with me. One which must of been about 6 months to a year later, yet again we had an exciting night at the social club on the estate, you will discover quite a lot of these stories start there. 

We went there most Friday and Saturday nights, as did many families, they would have some dodgy band or DJ on in the family hall, while many of the dads would sneak into the adult only bar, leaving the mums and kids in the hall, except the kids would be kicked into the games room, and interesting title for a small room with to arcade machines, there was a fighting and a driving game and not enough room to swing half a cat. Which meant most of the kids would drive whoever was working on the door mad by hanging and running around in the foyer, until they had enough and would shout at us to "bugger off".

Anyway, it was on one of these nights we all went back to someone's house, it often happened, an after party. I can't remember who they were, just that they lived in the next street. So in the way these things go, all the adults are downstairs drinking, dancing and laughing, meanwhile all the kids are upstairs messing about.

I remember one of the adults coming up and shouting me, saying we were going home, I remember coming down the stairs to screaming, I then realised the person screaming was my mum. She was hysterical, she had hold of some woman by the hair, while battering her. I had absolutely no idea what was going on, I've just walked downstairs to this, I then see my dad wade in grabbing hold of my mum, dragging her outside.

I just remember this party of people staring at them, and then me, some woman gave me my coat, and I very sheepishly followed them out the door, I really wanted the ground to open up and swallow me, I was just expected to follow behind them, my mum kicking and screaming, my dad holding her dragging her home, shouting and swearing at her, I just wanted to be invisible. I remember trying to walk as quietly as possible so they didn't notice me, it was probably about 2am. My concentration paid off, I genuinely don't think they were aware I was there, I had been completely forgotten about, which at that moment was the best outcome for me, although looking back it is a scary thought, I often wonder if they would have noticed if I wasn't there, I wanted to run in any direction except for where we were heading, home.