I grew up in a family that was fractured and dysfunctional. My earliest memories are of my parents’ fighting. My father had a gambling addiction and both my parents struggled with drugs and alcohol. We never seemed to have any money. I remember my grandmother regularly giving my mother money to buy groceries. I became a surrogate mum to my younger brother as parenting was ver....
It’s 19 May, 2016. Tomorrow, I’ll be 50. And here I am, alone, sleeping on a mattress on the floor. I’m in the spare room of the house I own. Across the hallway in the master bedroom, my ex-husband and his fiancée are sleeping peacefully. In my bed. As I look up at the ceiling, I can’t wipe the smile off my face. I realise with every cell of my body that I’ve genuine....
It began with predatory stares. My young thigh, catatonic glances, his scary blue eyes that turned from my gaze less and less. Glares mutated to creaks on stairs, and those young and tender years when other girls whispered of crushes, were to me, filled with felonies in the night. He wasn’t my real father, but was to protect me as if he were. If he could hurt me, then w....
My mum and dad had a very rocky relationship. Although I knew that they loved me and my brother and sister they spent a lot of time arguing with each other. When I was eight my parents divorced and my mum took my younger brother and sister and I to live in Nowra with our Nan. When I was in Year 6 my mum fell in love in with a man in the Navy and …....
