Destroying the past

[Shaun Hately]

I went for a walk today - a nice long walk, through some of the 
area I grew up in. I felt myself drawn to a memorial to a girl I 
knew who was murdered a little over ten years ago. And seeing I was 
then in that area, I decided to walk past the school she attended - 
which was the same school I attended in 1987 when I was 12 years 
old and in 'Year 7' of school. I generally refer to it as the 
school from hell - I went in a fairly outgoing and happy child - 
and came out 10 months later physically and emotionally scarred, 
nursing a deep, deep depression, and ready to kill myself rather 
than go back there.

It's not a place I have exactly wanted to revisit. But I decided to 
take a look at it.

The school's spread out along a fairly long road - it's a very 
narrow school, but a rather long one - so I had quite a long walk 
alongside it. It hadn't changed much from what I could see.

I approached it from what was the 'senior school' end when I was 
there and had to walk down it's entire length before I got to the 
junior school area which was where I suffered so much abuse and 
pain. As I passed the old Year 8 block (which I only ever entered 
for some elective subjects) I felt my heart beginning to pound, I 
actually began to sweat. Feelings of pain began to resurface just 
be being in close proximity to the places where I was hurt so much. 
I almost turned back - but I approached the old 'Year 7' block 
anyway.

And it wasn't there. The buildings where I was beaten up every day, 
while teachers watched - where teachers labelled me as mentally 
retarded because I didn't fit their moulds, where I was left 
unconscious on the toilet floors - and where they decided to punish 
me for that... was gone. They'd demolished it. And replaced it with 
tennis courts.

That felt SO good (well, apart from the realisation that now I 
could never fulfill my dream of burning it to the ground personally 
(yes, I'm kidding - but I wasn't when that was a dream). It 
exorcised some - not all, not most, but some - of the demons I've 
been carrying around for the last 16 years.

I just had to share those feelings.


Yours Without Wax, Dreadnought
Shaun Hately | www.alphalink.com.au/~drednort/thelab.html
(ISTJ)       | drednort at alphalink.com.au | ICQ: 6898200 
"You know the very powerful and the very stupid have one
thing in common. They don't alter their views to fit the 
facts. They alter the facts to fit the views. Which can be 
uncomfortable if you happen to be one of the facts that 
need altering." The Doctor - Doctor Who: The Face of Evil
Where am I: Frankston, Victoria, Australia