3. Lies

3. LIES

06/09/2002

All my life I carried on with the assumption you have to accept whatever cards you get dealt in life, get over it and make the best of it.  I know now that this is a lie because everyone has their own destiny in their hands to some extent.  The choices you make, determines your destiny.  Pity you only find that out later in life.

Like most children, we did not have a happy childhood.  Mom and Dad got divorced when I was four and Biscuit was about ten or eleven.  Mom had custody of us and not being the perfect mom, also made her fair share of mistakes.  All is forgiven now, but they unfortunately left scars.  John was a train driver and had an accident for which he was suspended without pay for a period of time, leaving mom to support a family of four.  Needless to say she could not make it. 

I do not remember much about this time, but there are one or two incidents printed in my memory.  Now if this is a true reflection - I do not know.  Keep in mind that all these letters are my feelings and how I experienced it.

That morning mom said good-bye to go to work and asked us to please stay in the house all day, not to go outside and stay away from the windows.  She did not explain to me why.  Then a car stops outside, and wow, it’s my daddy!  I can remember him and Elizabeth sitting down with us on some or other steps, holding us and crying.  They said we had to take a drive with them.  I said mom’s instructions were not to go anywhere and we better get back in the house.  They convinced me to go along eventually.  After a few hours I was getting worried because we were driving and driving and driving.  I told daddy to turn around because we are not going to make it back home in time for when mommy returns from work.  I was then informed that we are not going back.  We are going to stay with them now, and that Auntie Elizabeth is my new mommy and I have to call her mommy.  There will be no crying, because this is the way it’s going to be.  I do not remember much after that.  I don’t know if it was because I blocked it out and if that is where the seed of silent rebellion was planted in my heart.

Biscuit was the rebel.  She had the guts to persevere.  I just bottled it all up deep inside where no one could see and day-by-day the hate would grow.  I accepted what life dealt me, but I hated every minute of it!  And I hated every person I ever got in contact with.  One half I hated for doing it to me and the other half for having a better life than me. The only one I never hated was Biscuit, because she was in the same boat as me.

The same went for my marriage.  I married my X not because I loved him, but because he got dealt to me, and I made it work.

I met him at Balmoral, it’s a dance venue just outside Witbank, and we both loved dancing.  I was only nineteen at the time.  Dad warned me from the start that he was not the right one for me, but being the rebel by heart, I would not listen to any advice.  And because dad said it wasn’t going to work, I would show him, I’m going to make it work!  Then dad made me choose between him and this miner, and I chose the miner. 

I ran away left home one day when they weren’t there, and moved in with a friend for a few months.  I worked in Bronkhorstspruit at the time and Mr X to be was an apprentice in Witbank.  We were engaged for a few months and I suspected that he was fooling around.  So I found a job in Witbank and moved in with him to keep a close eye on him.  We shared a three-bedroom mine house with his parents, his two sisters and two of their children.

I was once again rebelling in silence with every aspect of my life and this relationship, but I was making it work.  Then he qualified and the mine said we could have a house. Now this is all we needed to get the flame going.  The mine said we had to be married and so we got married to get a house.  He did not even propose to me, and I had to buy my own ring.  This was all decided on the Tuesday, and the Saturday

1 October 1988 we were married.  All planned and executed in less than a week.

Biscuit still asked me while I was getting dressed if this is what I really wanted, and I said yes, but in my heart I was screaming so loud that she must please take me away from there, because I am in so deep and don’t know how to get out.  For some or other reason I am scared to change my mind.  I always think about the others and how I will be letting them down instead of thinking of myself.

When after a while the flame died down and the fighting started, I thought babies would make it better, mistake number two.  That even complicated things more.  Then the lying, drinking and disappearing started.  When my daughter was six months old, I just could not take it any more living a lie, and I left.  I moved in with my friend from Bronkhorstspruit once again.

I had no income and at that stage did not even know I could apply for child support.  Mr X knew I was shit scared of my Dad and that’s where he went.  My dad called and said:  “Stop your nonsense and go home with your husband.”  And that’s just what I did.  Not because I wanted to, but because I was scared of my dad.

I dealt with my version on life from 1988 until 2001.  By then I had two kids.  My daughter (Garf) and my son (Rusty).

During August 2001, I took a trip.  This is a trip that changed my whole life drastically.  I tasted the sweetness of freedom to be myself, and I was hungry! ! !