Everyone needs to feel that they belong somewhere in this great scheme of things we call life!
We all find that no matter where we were born or what shade our skin is: all we really want is to fit in somewhere, to belong to some group, to find someone who is like us! We spend our lives searching for a place where we can feel relaxed & comfortable in our own skin. It is this basic need that shows itself in the way we behave & react in the presence of others. We all want friendship & love & when that deep inner cry echoes in our mind we search & search until we find that comfortable existence that we all need: to feel whole.
My search has taken up my entire life. As a child at primary school I felt hurt when I couldn't join in the religious instruction class that all the others were in. I felt left out there & then! I felt & was different! I was a wog, an outsider, someone from a different country. I was someone with a different language, a different shade of skin, who spoke a different language at home & whose parents were different. They couldn't speak English very well & couldn't help me with my homework as I was growing up because their education had been very limited back in Hungary where they came from. They had no choice as their parents couldn't afford to let them go to school as they grew older because they were needed at home to help support their family.
I helped my parents learn English. My brother & I would read comics to our mum & dad to help with their learning a new language so that they could feel that they fitted into this new country that was now our home. It was very difficult for them to leave their family & friends behind in Hungary. My parents were very young when they married & left the place where they had belonged since they were born. My aunt, her husband & 3 sons & another uncle joined my parents (my mum was pregnant with me) & my brother, to walk across the border into Austria. Here they claimed political asylum & finally got to England & then Australia. I could not possibly imagine how difficult this would have been: knowing there were minefields & other horrible deterrents to stop people from escaping from Russian-controlled Hungary.
Could you leave your family to go somewhere you have never been, only heard about, without a word of their language in your vocabulary? I know I couldn't! I have always been shy & found it difficult to fit in: I was the only girl in my family fro many years, my 3 older male cousins didn't want me around because I was too young & wasn't into the obvious male games like wrestling & the usual rough & tumble boy stuff. I always seemed to get them into trouble & looking back I know that sometimes I did it on purpose; to get them back for ignoring me!
I can't remember how old I was when one of my cousins started to pay attention to me, maybe 4 or 5 years of age. He decided that I was finally useful for something & began to play doctors & nurses with me in the privacy of his parent's bedroom. He started to interfere with me & touched me inappropriately. He told me it was "our little secret". I felt uncomfortable but didn't know how to say anything & had no idea that I could say anything about it. Mum must have been suspicious because she almost caught us several times. Here am I feeling guilty even though I was the innocent in all this. I felt like I was doing something wrong but at least he was spending time with me; not ignoring me. I don' t know how long it went on for but he was using me to experiment with his new-found sexuality, so he must have been a teenager by then.
How did I feel? Awful, used & betrayed. Changed; no longer innocent & yet I didn't know anything about sex. Before that the only thing I remember is that silly little childish game of 'I'll show you mine if you'll show me yours!" where I was tricked into showing mine while our friend George showed me his little finger through his Y-fronts. Mind you I am not using my cousin as an excuse for all the stupid things I got up to in later years, but I often wonder how much that interference affected me in my formative years. Did it change me so much that I went off the rails? I don't know!
You be the judge! No-one has the right to judge another. Read on & understand my story. I leave nothing out. It is all here: warts & all: my search to find somewhere to fit in!
No comments:
Post a Comment