So I moved back in with my folks. I don’t think I ever adjusted properly. After 3 years of living away from home and getting used to living my way it was very difficult to readjust to a structured family routine. It caused massive friction between my mother and I. I was unemployed and receiving not a lot from the government in benefits as my parents had too many assets. Never mind they couldn’t afford to look after me. I found myself going to the local nightclubs till closing time every Thursday, Friday and Saturday Night (they were only open those nights) without fail. In fact the less time I could spend at home the better. I was applying for heaps of jobs but as a young guy with no experience at anything and no references it was tough. I got rejected for a factory sweeper as I was ‘overqualified’. What a joke, life was getting tough. I ended up taking an Orange Picking gig just to get the fuck out of the house. So I was getting up at 5, drove 40 minutes to start work before sunup. I would pick a bin knock off around 2pm and make a whopping $26 for the day before tax. I would come home exhausted. 40+ degree heat took its toll.
After 6 weeks I decided I just couldn’t go on and quit. So I went home and faced the music. When I told my mother about quitting my job she was not amused and we had the biggest fight ever. These are words I will never forget, she said she was “ashamed to have me as her son” and that I was a “disgrace to the family”. It wasn’t what you wanted to hear. Anyways one Saturday I was reading the Saturday paper and saw an ad for a 4 week retail course back in Melbourne. If you had a Health Care card the course cost $70 instead of the usual $600. So I crashed on my mates couch (this same mate is my current housemate), completed the four weeks of TAFE, did four weeks of unpaid work experience and ended up with a job. I’ve been living here in Melbourne ever since.
Incidentally after being back in Melbourne for a few months I found myself at a Seminar called the Landmark forum which was like a self help cultish type of thing where people would get up in front of the group and find themselves spilling their guts. We were all encouraged to do something big, contact that relative we haven’t spoken to for years and tell them we forgive them. So what did stupid old me do. I called my mother. I told her I forgave her for what she had said to me months earlier. She was shocked. She told me she didn’t recall saying that, started crying and we didn’t speak for over 6 months after that. These days we are better than ever but at the time I felt pretty bad. This was meant to be a seminar about fixing your life and it just made mine worse.
TO BE CONTINUED…
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