Temporary Member

I’m twenty years old, my relationship with the boyfriend I was living with has ended and I’ve moved back in with my dad. The last time I lived here I shared a bedroom with my two younger brothers and two sisters. That was four years ago, now instead of sleeping in a bed I’m sleeping on a trundle that pulls out from underneath my youngest sibling's bed. A total of seven people live in the small, one-bedroom apartment with a study that has been converted into a second bedroom. I use the word “cozy” to describe a warm and welcoming environment, this dwelling was anything but that. It was crammed and filled with unpleasant memories that clung to the walls that whispered to me at night.  

Within a month of living here, I found a casual job with full-time hours. I was a gardening assistant for a small company, and it didn’t pay well but I was used to working for much less. Previously I was contractually employed by a government funded program that aimed to get youth into horticultural roles. I worked within a team alongside rangers and local council members to maintain walking trails, heritage sites and national parks. The hourly rate was fifteen dollars, well below the industry award but made legal by the categorisation as a work-experience style program. Simply put, it was a labour apprenticeship with no certificate of accreditation at the end of the training period, just an A4 printed card in recognition of participation.  

It was winter and my workdays started when the sun rose. I often finished work around two in the afternoon and would be left with the remainder of the day to recover from whatever physical strain my body was subjected to. The apartment had one designated car bay located in an underground parking garage. There was almost always parking available on the street, but it came at a cost. The thought of having to fork out what would equivalate to an hour's work on a parking ticket was beyond what I could stomach. This left me with two options after work; stay out until the clock strikes six when the street parking became free, or use the apartment’s designated bay and relocate when my dad came home with his car. I can’t remember which option I decided to take that day, but I like to imagine I discovered a picturesque nature reserve. That I pulled into an asphalt lot, put my car in park, boosted the heater and watched the winter rain roll over my little hatchback. Perhaps I had a book with me to help pass the time, or maybe I was entertained enough by watching various species of birds interact with the world around them. It would have been a nice way to spend the afternoon, especially considering the events that transpired earlier that day. An aggressive driver tried to run the work vehicle off the road. I wasn’t a stranger to men’s rage, but this was the first time I’d experienced it on the road. My disappointment in people continued as the day progressed and by nightfall I was weeping. The bathroom was the only place of privacy and the shower my place of solitude. My sobs were muffled by the stream, an outpour of tears bled into the waterfall that cascaded down my fragile frame. My family had forgotten all about my special day. My twenty-first birthday. It was not a milestone, just another insignificant day. I unconsciously translated the disregard as not being valued. That I was undeserving, self-centered for even believing I felt such entitlement.  

Around eight in the evening a card was presented to me. My dad smiled in a way that let slip he knew his forgetfulness hadn’t gone unnoticed. I never let him know that it affected me, but this day furthered the development of an ideology I had been forming since I was a little girl. A belief system built upon the foundations of feeling unloved, with each brick forged by an experience that proved to me I wasn’t worth showing up for. I think my dad tells himself that I’m unaffected by such events due to my nature but there’s an unspoken law that I think exists in every family; to not bring up anything negative unless other subjects are the focal points of conversation. Sometimes I contemplate that my dad projects the image of my mother onto me. Grouping who I am as a person in with the traits he experienced from her, justifying any action or inaction in our relationship. Maybe that’s just my way of intellectualising it. Analising events in my life that have had no impact on the other participants. Torturing myself over details the perpetrators or bystanders most likely never looked back on or had a conceptual awareness of. Truth be told my dad most likely forgot my birthday because he’s a grey-haired man who married a woman half his age and had a second batch of kids ranging from three to eight-years-old. A recovering alcoholic who’s forced to overcompensate vitality due to the choices he made.  

A few weeks later I had my first brush with food poisoning. Every item of food I ate over the next two days was rejected by my body. I had to call off work sick and was almost entirely bed bound. I was quickly becoming weak due to the lack of sustenance, so I tried to force a nutbar down. I thought I had finally been successful but then I felt my stomach start to turn. I jumped up from the trundle bed and only made it a few steps before I threw up. I fainted in the process and hit my head on the way down. My step-mum witnessed it all and did nothing to help. She was sat on a bed adjacent to the door frame. I wasn’t out for long because I heard her voice ordering for the vomit to be mopped up. My dad rushed over, helping me up and navigated my body a few steps forward to the bathroom. I sat down on the closed lid of the toilet seat, hovering my upper body over the basin next to me, in preparation for further evacuation. There was nothing left to be purged. After my dad cleaned up the remnants of partially digested food I was promptly kicked out of the bathroom. My step-mum had to use the toilet and patience is a virtue she is not unequipped with. Despite being unconscious on the floor and in danger of choking on my own sick merely minutes ago, I was booted from my resting point. 

It took me four months to establish myself enough to be able to move out. Almost every night I was there I wished for a safe space to cry in. I couldn’t allow myself to show the slightest amount of emotional discomfort, for any signs of grief I displayed would be echoed throughout the household by the little voices of my siblings. I socially isolated, keeping the circumstances that led me to return private, providing a watered-down synopsis of events. A relationship that changed the trajectory of my life.