Blue Neighbourhood by Sarah McAllister (rainbow fish read aloud .TXT) 📕

   Distraction. 

Most likely, there's some sort of negative connotation tied to the word 'distraction'. The first thing that might pop into someone's mind when hearing the word itself. Procrastination. Delinquency. Tragedy even. And they're not wrong. Distractions can result in unwanted consequences. However, I have a different experience with distractions. Distraction kept my sprouting insanity at bay. Distraction was my oblivion when the pain was just too real to ignore. Distraction did its best to stave off my self-hatred and averted my attention to something less destructive. 

 Distraction was not a Nintendo, or an iPod equipped with earbuds. Distraction had a name. Its name was Troye Sivan. 

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2005

 At that time, it had been two years. Two years since Mum earned her wings and left my dad and I in the struggle against the current. On our own. A fighter, she always was, and she was adamant about the fact that she wouldn't ever walk out of our lives when we needed her most. But when you're in a war with stage IV breast cancer, you can't really have the highest hopes for a happy ending. Not to say she lived every day in depression after the doctors broke the news to her. She acted as if she knew no cancer. Her eyes glistened with faith. She breathed hope. But eventually, she gave up her smile while on her deathbed and told me she'd have to stop this 'naive' way of thinking. She accepted that she was going to go. Not too long after that, she died peacefully right before my very eyes and I've never felt so enraged with the world. It took my mother away. My confidant. My comforter -- the world took her away from me. Away from me. 

 My father took it much worse. I remember so vividly a few days after her passing away when he said goodbye to his sanity. He wasn't my father anymore. At least, he's not the father I used to know, anymore. He couldn't look at the family pictures any longer. Just hearing her name was unbearable. It was like the mask etched into his face, the man he once was, was traded out for another who cared about nothing more than forgetting. Escaping the memories. Getting away from the images of her ghosting in his mind.  A harder battle awaited him each passing day. He got a lot meaner. Craved amnesia a little more. Deteriorated a little more. Long nights with vodka bottles became his best friend. He was in dire need for a distraction. Yes, his actions gave him unwanted consequences like losing his job. But he was determined that he wouldn't let the agonizing pain in his heart swallow him whole. 

 It's funny how my dad and I are the same, although I hate to admit it. We allowed anger to infiltrate our lives and almost destroy us. Instead of taking this grief process in stride as father and son, we embark on a wild goose chase for tranquility by ourselves. We did everything possible to fill the void inside us, where Mum's vibrancy used to reign. We were obsessed, obsessed with wanting to forget. 

 Then, an eight-year-old distraction named Troye Sivan stumbled into my life. 

Publication Date: 03-04-2016

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