The beginning

I've had this burning desire for years to tell my story. And I think now is the time. I'm not a writer, I envy my friends who can put words together in such a beautiful way, so this will be raw, honest, maybe even childlike! I don't know where it's gonna end up, and not sure if anyone will even read it. I don't even know where to start, so maybe the beginning would be a good place....,,.

I was born in 1970 to my teenage hippy parents. Mum and Dad were living, aka squatting in kings Cross, Sydney. Dad was playing in bands, and Mum was working as a secretary in the city. They'd moved from the North Coast to the big city. The pregnancy wasn't planned, and at 14 weeks pregnant, my mother ended up at a backyard abortion 'clinic' - however, after hearing the screams of the girls who went before her, she left and decided she'd adopt me out. She ended up linking in with the nuns at a hospital for unwed mothers in Annandale and arrangements were made to adopt me out - it was the Love Child era when girls were forced to give their babies up against their will. My mother wrote to her parents letting them know she was pregnant, and that she was adopting me out. - I read that letter on my 21st birthday. By some miracle, my alcoholic grandfather contacted her and said 'who bloody cares what everyone thinks, we're keeping that baby'. So a few weeks after I was born, mum and dad moved back to their homeland of Lismore and Mullumbimby on the far north coast of NSW. She was one of the lucky ones.