Back and trying

 Yip, its me im back after my weeks hiatus,

Writing is kinda like my sobriety, I have the best of intentions and really, really want to do it but there is just a part of me that cannot seem to climb the hurdle of comfortable I have lived in this past decade.  I laugh as I write this too because I am constantly annoyed at western humanity for not wanting to disrupt their comfort to make change.  It’s frustrating because I feel like, and i have had this most of my life, that I would and could do all these things if I was alone in the world.  Like real alone.  No dog, no partner, no mahi…and thats just it, when you have nothing, you will fight for any and everything.  And honestly, sometimes I really do want that.

But that could be a result of feeling comfort in neglect.  Something I seem to have discovered has been a lifelong friend.  I have pondered whether or not to write about this for a bit now, another excuse for my procrastination out of fear of hurting the people i feel neglected by, on the off chance they decide now is the time to take an interest in me.  I have done some reflection on my childhood, teenage hell and the adult i have become, trying to figure why, how and whats next and more and more I am seeing the stark truth.  My start on this path was pushed after a trip home and time with my father.  We had some really deep conversations as we travelled to where he was born and spent a lot of his childhood.  It was amongst these beautifully candid kōrerorero that he apologised for not sticking up for me and wished he had been stronger.  It was a double edged sword for me to learn that my father wasn’t as brave and strong as I had thought but it was really cathartic to hear that this feeling of pain from my childhood wasn't without reason.  While on this trip, we saw some old family friends and this is where I heard some hard stuff.  People being very candid about my mother and how we actually lived.  It, again was cathartic, but also heart wrenching.  I am thankful I had the opportunity to hear these brutally honest things as it gave me a sense of relief that there was a reason for my feelings.

It’s a hard thing to learn the shortcomings of the people who raised you but there is some comfort in knowing that the niggling feeling you had was justified.  I spent a lot of time in my life living in a fantasy land as an escape from the loneliness.  I learnt to read and write pretty quickly and used this as my out.  I found writing fantasy and horror after devouring the Stephen King collection at my grandparents whare, leftovers from the teenagers my mother and her siblings were…and I was young, maybe 7 or 8.  Not quite understanding the words, but every school holidays would read, Christine, Night Shift, IT, Pet Semetary, sometimes devouring two in a night, reading until the sun came up.  I had found my genre, the depictions of horrors I had never seen, vivid in my child’s mind, I was engulfed by these stories and delighted when I discovered the films.  What a treat for my imagination to see this violence and gore, for nothing more than an escape from a world that felt like didn’t see me.  At school I tried to incorporate my new found love with my writing ability, I was smart enough to keep it “kid friendly” but when I was 10, I happily got up to share a story when my teacher commented, “I hope there is no blood in this one”.  One sentence, of course in front of the class (cause for some reason this 30yr old had a problem with me) and my love for horror writing was gone, my desire to share with the class, gone. Any confidence I had in my ability to escape, as a young neglected kid was wiped out in an instant.

I think about that moment too, so often in my life and in relation to my writing.  I think about the signs that there was potentially something wrong, that a teacher not only, didn’t care or didn’t notice, a teacher that up until that moment, I had idolised. A teacher that never had a quiet word with me about it, never pulled me aside to see if everything was okay.  That teacher haunts me and she has probably never given it a second thought.  Funny though, as I write this and think of the adults around me that didn’t see or say anything about the skinny kid with unkempt hair that snuck adult level gore into her daily writing and I guess, 30yrs ago, maybe what we see now as neglect, wasn’t as bad as I remember. 

Well this started one way and ended another…happens when you’re writing it over 2 days, so sorry for the whiplash and bad vibes.  Sorry if I hurt your feelings, sorry I cant keep to a theme.  Will try and do better.