I grew up in poverty. In abuse. In neglect.
I am not writing this for anything but to state a fact. Sometimes this means that I am socially awkward and inept in rather every day middle class situations. I have a house with two floors and a backyard. Every day, quietly to myself, my jaw drops just a little that I can call the space mine. Yet, I still feel slightly askew in my own home. That there is another me who lives here; and another me who resents it. I don’t deserve it.
“Mommy!” She called from her room. I was cleaning toothpaste spit and chasing the other kid who was half naked making animal calls. We needed to leave in 10 for work and school and it was hard to change my resentment to a calm “Yes?” in response to my daughter. When she didn’t respond I stomped to her room.
“Look.” was all she said.
I stopped. The sun warming the air around her. The tiny hairs that she refused to brush matching the fading and bleeding colours of the sunrise. Changing the sky into melting wax crayons of warm tones.
The knots and anger melted away in the briefest clasp of time that froze me. It only lasted that moment, enough to grab a photo and remind myself that I exist, too.
Heidi Allum 
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