In the middle of a small town, stories die

Last week Nathan and I were talking after school.

“I feel like they’re judging me, judging us, because of your blog.” Nathan said, out of nowhere.

I was stunned. Three years after I got any real publicity here, surely they’ve all forgotten I write on the Internet?

We talked about it and I’ll admit, I was defensive. I’ve been defending this blog as long as I’ve had it – not from Nathan, who understands my perpetual need to tell stories, but from everyone else.

But why would you put your children on the Internet?

How can you tell strangers that?

Isn’t it weird?

You’re weird.

Weird,

weird

weird.

The side-eye and the shifty glances, the subtle judgements.

I was feeling defensive. Yes, there are women who haven’t spoken to me since they discovered I had a blog, but honestly, did they expect me to stop writing because of their judgements?

Maybe they did.

Maybe I did.

I stopped writing as much, exposed and naked as I was here, the all seeing eye of the Parents and Friends association falling on me. My trust issues, anxiety issues making it into a bigger deal than it might have been.

I stopped telling my stories.

—

Amy grew up. She started school, grew wings, made friends. I stopped writing about her, and maybe that was my mistake. By refusing to share stories of her, I’ve stopped talking about her all together. My amazing, spirited, independent daughter.

I emailed the school yesterday to see if the referral I signed for Amy to see the school psychologist is still current. She needs assessing, with more help than I can give. We suspect dyslexia, but who knows what is going on inside her mind? She’s stopped eating enough at school, the food shaming body police getting inside her head.

“I just don’t want to eat too much Mum.”

“But why? What is too much?”

She shrugs, unsure of how to tell me what she means. Maybe unsure of what she means. She’s internalised the God of Skinny and I worry about her as she picks her way through dinner two hours after we’ve finished eating.

I shouldn’t talk about her – I should leave it to others to make up their own mind about my brilliant daughter, without the taint of my opinion clouding their judgement. Without labels hanging over her head like rain-clouds, floating soft and silver and ever present.

But there’s dyslexia and my ever growing disillusionment about the messages they’re sending in school about health and healthy.

Children cannot live on carrot sticks alone, but oh how they can try.

—

I grew up in this community, and the slurs I internalised still whisper in my ears. A gloating child insisting my father wasn’t my real father because my parents hadn’t been married when I was born. I was an illegitimate bastard, she took pains to point out.

Eight year olds don’t know what illegitimate means in relation to their school friends. Someone was talking outside of school, whispered conversations in kitchens, overheard and repeated back to me. Arrows to my heart.

They’re the ferals up the hill.

Never have any money.

Have you seen the way they dress?

I heard they eat roadkill.

Hey feral, do your parents feed you roadkill? What’s in your lunchbox feral? Why don’t you have new shoes?

Now my children go to school here and I wonder if the stain is fixed, under their skin somehow.

—

When you stop telling stories, even though your soul is filled to the brim with swirling words, something starts to die inside you. Round and round inside the goldfish bowl I go, more worried about what other people will think, rather than sticking to my own guns.

Slowly I slide off the radar and it’s safer this way, easier, warmer. Huddled in the bottom of the pool, not speaking out.

I can’t sustain it though. Not writing is harder than writing. Swallowing my stories down is harder than regurgitating them for you.

And let’s be clear, they are my stories. I have every right to tell my truth, as uncomfortable as you may find it.

I can see the judgey eyes swinging my way. How dare I poke things, how dare I lift the rug, talk about my childhood, talk about my children.

My mother warns me. “Nothing is private in a small town school. Remember that when you speak to the psychologist.”

I know this.

How I know this.

Carved into my skin, a thousand million insults remind me of how this works, when privacy is not a thing. My scars make me tougher, my convictions make me stronger.

I tell stories, because that’s what I am. A storyteller.

And if that makes us pariahs in our community – well.

It’s not like I’m not used to it.