So plenty more years went by and I was still the same stuck up , pathetic kid at age nine . I cried over the same stupid things : if I wasn't at the front of the queue in a store or I had to wait a single minute for attention . I'd wail - till my eyes reflected the colour of my hair - if my mum forgot to get me the right sprinkles on my ice cream , the milk chocolate ones in the shape of mini stars , or my shoes weren't tied to the same level of tightness . If my teacher made me write with a pen (instead of my favourite pencil) in class or we came across a song I hadn't heard in assembly . Ugh . I made myself cringe . I must've driven the whole world mad . I honestly don't understand how they put up with me .
Maybe I don't blame them for what they did anymore... maybe I should never have done so .
So this was me at nine years old.
I had tiny freckles that spread across my rosy cheeks and stood out on my pale skin like shiny stars in the night's sky , neatly hidden under my thick hair . My mum never let me cut my hair , she wanted me to live like she never got too . She basically wanted me to live her childhood for her like she would have , if it hadn't been so controlled .
She grew up in a very busy , posh city and simply just did as she was told . She never experienced true happiness , until she met my dad .
They got married very quickly after they had met and then ran away as soon as they were granted the opportunity. She claimed she finally felt like she'd been given the chance to live - not just survive . After she left what she was told was her 'home' . She continuously repeats that it was like she'd been donated a new set of lungs . A brand new , clean start at something she had awaited her entire life. She drilled that into my brain and insisted I was the luckiest girl alive . Of course I believed her and of course it made me even more full of myself .
Love was something she had never expected too , that's what makes it even more magical . She fell 'in love' and she swore she never had to think twice about it . That's what confuses me. One minute they were staring into each other's eyes with indescribable amounts of adoration and the next they were ripping each other's heads off.
My dad left a couple of days after I turned 12 . I Don't think it would have mattered if he had made it to my birthday after all . That day , I came home from school and he never seemed to walk through that door . Mum told me he was just working for longer .
Every. Single . Day .
He never arrived the next day . Or the day after that . Or the day after that . Or the month after that . Or the years that followed.
It was always a different excuse . She somehow always convinced me to believe her though. Yet , to this day , I know there's a much bigger story to tell . Something was most definately left unexplained . The missing puzzle piece , to what felt like a never ending game.
Well , as much as I was incredibly selfish , I wanted to make her happy again , so I did as she had asked . She was never too controlling , she just encouraged the small things she always wished she had the possibility of doing . So I didn't cut my hair and I wouldn't say I regret it either .
Mum's great . If I had , then I would probably have never experienced it so long . The likelihood of me being able to tie my hair the way the models did or spend hours as I begged my mum to curl it for me as I stared at myself in the mirror , would be much lower .
I adored my long hair , It went down to my waist and curled at the bottom. It still remained that fiery orange colour. I used to tie it in french braids to school and let it flow freely on the weekend because It made me feel like a princess. Oh to feel such a thing again.
I was also quite popular . Bearing in mind I was still so young , I had already managed to have boys ask me out and had plenty of people to walk to class with . That was never a problem. I was twelve . I didn't care to think what was right and what was wrong , or who was fake and who actually liked me for me , I didn't even care to think why they liked me , or how I managed to find so many friends. My popularity was simply my normal.
For my birthday party one year , mum wanted to do something special. Well , I had just started a new year and she thought it would be best to get everyone to come over for a massive party in the back garden. She sent invites out to the WHOLE school. People I didn't even know. It was beyond embarrassing. I hit in the toilet for weeks at break and lunch to avoid it all. Surprisingly, a lot more people had showed up than I'd expected and it had been the best party of the year. Everyone talked about it and I had friends from every year. Im convinced they just wanted to be invited to more parties but I never had the energy to go through all that again.
I'm laughing . I can't stop laughing. I was popular… ?? This doesn't make sense to me . The girl who sits by the lake , The lonely girl , The one left with no friends . The one who thinks . Day in day out , Whose brain doesn't stop shouting . The girl who hasn't moved from this seat . The weak , unmotivated , sensitive , boring girl . SHE . HER. I . …..was popular ?!
Oh but as much as I try to question it , I know it was true.
I was most definitely popular.
Well that's another thing ticked off on my humiliating things I somehow remember doing list .