by Sue Cullen
I remember as a child I used to write about love — or what I thought, at the time, love was. I used to write about things that caused me pain or upset me. I started writing a journal at the age of thirteen and I take great joy, now at the age of thirty two, in reading all of the things I wrote about and witnessed, all, of course, through the eyes of a child.
There is a diary entry I remember well, written after I had taken a bus ride with my best friend. I write about how there is nothing to do, about the heroin abuse I witness.
And about a deaf man I saw speaking to his girlfriend.
<>I cried for the deaf man, literally, and wrote of how sad it was that this young man had no power of speech, I cried because he seemed so happy and I, who hadEverything felt so sorry for myself.
I think that was one of the moments that made me grow up and stop focusing on the shitty goings on in my neighbourhood. There was drug abuse. There was no place for young people to go, but I realised, like this man, who could communicate happily despite being deaf, I too could find a way to be happy. I enrolled at a drama group.
And decided, there, I could escape the bus rides and the boredom of the streets.
I did ,and never looked back and I owe a thank you, to the nameless, now faceless happy man on the number 17.
You see, diary or no diary, events from your childhood will shape your future in one way or another. Children don’t need a diary, they have an internal scrap book, inside their little minds. Some things they choose to forget, but equally there are things that they are going to mentally take note of and forever keep rereading whatever they decided to jot down.
Being a parent is the hardest thing, if blessed with the opportunity to become one,
you will ever have to be, You can be a teacher, a scholar, a brain surgeon, an executive in a high flying company, but I know nothing will ever come close to the difficulties and stress that we face as parents. My two beautiful boys are two and three, they are full of enthusiasm and zest for life. They love receiving answers to their questions, and adore being chased around the room, park, beach wherever. Their innocence is beautiful. They are untouched by prejudicial thoughts, sin, they are, as any children are, Angels. They are beginning life, learning wrong from right.
Two little men in the making, I, along with every other parent ,want to keep them as angels but, I also know that’s not real. I know that they have to find out about this world and how good and bad people live alongside each other.
We’re letting them grow and experience life , all the time hoping that every page in their internal journal is filled with only happy memories and beautiful dreams.
There will always be drugs, always be nothing to do, but equally, if given the right parental guidance and support, there will always be the opportunity within themselves to find a way out of the boredom.
Bringing my children up while dealing with my illness is challenging and at times heartbreaking.
<>I cannot do everything I want to do with them. I cannot run around the park, I cannot pick them up as much as they would like, I know there are times I have to leave for hospital, in Bristol, a place they will one day be introduced to. They know Mummy has a battery and they have to be careful with mummy’s head.’
For this reason I cannot be all I want to be with them but…….. I can love them .with an indescribable force, and it is this that they will remember about me, when they come to read their journals.