I stared at the carpet with a fast developing numb feeling as my godmother unleashed what I can only describe as a total assassination of my character; Ironic given her status as godmother, I mean weren't they supposed to support you rather than rip you into a thousand tiny pieces? Well not on this occasion anyway.
I found myself sat staring at the floor and wondering if I prayed hard enough, it may in fact open up and swallow me as I sat rigid on my godmother's sofa. It was a winter evening and I had been invited around to her house with my mother and my sister while her husband, my father and her son went out to the pub for a drink. I was 19 years old and was struggling to both find what I wanted to do with my future and gain any form of meaningful employment. There was a recession in full swing, and jobs for even the most experienced "something or other" were hard to find. My adopted aunt likes two things: Wine and telling people what to do. Both of these past times are like adding fire to a tinderbox when combined.
"Now, now you see... Let me tell you what I think the issue is" she spluttered at me across the room, "I don't think you even want to work!" she exclaimed as if trying to convince the room her epiphany was correct. "I think you're lazy, and you have become insti, instichu, institutionalised", she finally slurred "yes! like a prisoner who doesn't know how to be free in the outside world when they have been released". I sat there speechless as the woman who had known me since before I was born (having been a friend of my mothers since before my sister was born) cut me to pieces like Edward scissor hands. I stared at the floor unable to answer and unwilling to look up at either her, my mother or my older sister as a feeling of intense pain, and then numbness began to fill my body. It started in my feet, spread up into my legs, into my stomach, then chest and finally turned my faced into a flushed shade of beetroot; I didn't need to look into a mirror to know as I felt the heat glow from my cheeks. One thing I had NEVER been called in my life, was lazy. I did my best at everything I ever attempted, that's just how I was brought up. When she had finally finished her drunken tirade I excused myself and asked to use her bathroom. Once inside, I exploded into a sea of silent tears, not wanting anyone to hear just how much I was hurt. I can't believe she would say that I sobbed internally, as the numbness I felt on the sofa turned to anger inside the bathroom, and how can my mother and sister sit there in silence while I was ripped to shreds like that... A little tiny piece of me was forever changed that rainy, wintery night in her home and yet I thank her now, for two things actually, firstly for belittling me so badly that I took the very next job I could find, and secondly for making ANY abusive tirade I have ever faced in my job (and there have been a fair few) seem wholly insignificant in comparison to that night.
A few days later I took the bus to an interview I had seen on a jobs website advertising for waiting on staff in the area where I lived, I got the job and my career in hospitality had begun.
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