We will start at the beginning and then stop. 91-97.

Blogging, or just writing in general I think, is supposed to be sort of therapeutic, or at least that's what I've been told. I thought I may as well give it a go, I can always scorn this blogs creation at a later date.

So to begin with, it should probably be said I am not your typical twenty year old female. Indeed, I don't think anything about my existence up until this point has ever been typical. I can only explain this covering short periods of time. This post can cover from my birth to age five I think, past that point it gets more complicated and I cannot be bothered sorting out my thoughts this evening to cover beyond that age. 

I was born to young parents, 24 and 21, my father already having fathered two children by this point and my mother only one other, my sister Jessie. My father was and still is, a mechanic, while my mother stayed at home or as it says on my birth certificate, her occupation was "home duties." I was apparently a planned child, conceived in a tree and from what I can gather, some sort of trap to keep my father (a serial adulterer) from straying even further from my mother. I'll give you a spoiler right now, that didn't work so well for my mum.

Much of my first few years is a blur, as you can imagine, but there were common occurrences in my household that I very much doubt are common or "typical." For one thing, my parents were young and loved to party. My sister and I often found ourselves with our Grandma in Bondi, while my parents danced the night away and took God knows what. It would often be a few days before they came back for us.

By the time my sister started school, we were very close, having gotten used to the fact we were pretty much on our own. For a long time I didn't even bother speaking to people, I just communicated through my sister and she was only too happen to tell my parents what I wanted. She was always the more charismatic and outgoing child. When she left for school I had no one. I didn't grow up surrounded by other children my age or go to preschool, I was always with my sister or my mum. The problem was that by this point, my mum was very depressed. She had two young children, she was young herself and often my father just left for days and didn't come back. She would lock herself in her room, with all the light blacked out and just slept. When my father was home it wasn't much better. They were terrifying when they fought, my father is a physical fighter and my mother has a cutting and brutal tongue. I have so many memories of hiding behind doors with my sister just waiting for them to stop their own little war, usually staged in our kitchen. Dad always ended it. Someone was always hurt. Screaming and crying was typical background noise for me.

From the time of my birth to the age of five, when everything seemed to fall apart, all I can really remember is being with my sister, then being separated and then being alone and having some sort of rudimentary feeling that this was probably what life was.  I started Kindergarten in 1997 and missed half the year. My maternal Grandfather, who was my mother's world, died of terminal cancer in 1997. My mother and my father finally separated in 1997. My mother's depression got even worse in 1997, when my father took my sister and I away from her in 1997. 1997 was not a good year for me.  

I think I'll end this in 1997 and pick it up again at a later date, but it should be noted I can count on one hand the number of times I saw my mother over the next four or five years.