Prologue

 This is my family portrait, taken a few weeks before mom’s … leave. My dad wasn’t loving enough I mean what kind of a guy walks out of taking his own family portrait. And he was so overbearing. He made my mom dress like that?

You could just hear my dad’s heart breaking as every word she said attacked him like a knife, leaving something much more worse than puncture wounds. Mental scars. I don’t blame mom though, I would have done the same. I would have upped and left but why did she leave me too?

I was nearing my fifth birthday when she left the threshold, and she never returned to collect me. My dad spiralled into a strange depression, consuming all juice, nectar and alchoholic beverage in the house and later raiding the local pub for more. Neglect is how I remember my childhood, neglect and insecurity and worthless-ness. What was a bright happy child grew me, bad grades and a bad life. Giving my dad more grief than needed seeing as he had just lost his wife too, I was out of control.

Drunkenness lead to bankruptcy, which in turn lead to imprisonment. My mom gone, and my father locked up I had no where. I jumped from family member to family member, being an uncontrollable burden on each of them. They didn’t need it, none of them did, but playing up gave me the attention I craved so I carried on. No guilt no regrets.

Until I turned 18 and got turfed out by my own family. Don’t… don’t judge them for it though. Reflecting back on it, I know I shouldn’t have done any of this and maybe moving to a place of my own back in the city i lived in before dad got jailed. The city that should have held happy memories for me, moments of love from my dad and mom. Like getting my diploma and seeing the home movies like ten years later, thinking what goofs we were back then.

My name is Natalie Spear. And I shall turn my life around.