Previously… 1.1 – Where my Journey Started
I’ve always loved stories and have always loved reading and movies. My love of stories started with comics at age 6,7 and expanded from there. I used to be somewhat of a loner at school and didn’t make friends easily, being very introverted and shy. But when I did make friends, we always acted out stories I scripted. And of course dear Enid Blyton’s Famous Five and Secret Seven rubbed off and we made up our own gangs with secret languages and ciphers, and of course the inevitable hideouts and clubhouses.
But the best part of the day for me, was when it was bedtime and lights out…then, when everyone else was sleeping, I got up and … lived! Other people, other places. Adventure, action and escape!
I had all these people alive in my head and I acted out their lives, night after night, sometimes sticking with a character, sometimes skipping between them, but always not being me, that was totally not on! I hated being a girl, never wore dresses, and to my mother’s disgust, hated going shopping for clothes!
It was as if I stood on the sidelines, looking in.
My dad died when I was 10 and life after that moved even more into my head.
We moved far away from the countryside I was familiar with, to the sea…and then – we got television!
Suddenly some things got more visual and my imagination took on a new dimension.
I started growing up and when I went to high school, it was all too much for me. Too many people around, it was a huge school! Lots of kids in one class – I felt crowded. So a friend and I ran away from home. Backpacks packed, we walked over the mountains to the town on the other side of the pass. It took us the whole day! I knew that hitchhiking was out, we were two girls and getting picked up by just anyone wouldn’t be a good idea, so I insisted we walk. The evening we paid to get a bath in the local hotel (!) and I was all set to go and get a place to sleep outside the town in the forest, but my friend got cold feet after we noticed a guy in a car cruising by a couple of times. She called friends, they came to pick us up and I went back home, got the hiding of my life and persuaded my mom I needed to go to a smaller school, preferably a boarding school.
We never quite got on and she never understood me, but she got offered a job in another town, put me in the boarding school there and then moved there as well a couple of months later when she took the job.
I didn’t know that the school was a girl’s school, shocker, but I adjusted and finally had my own space to grow. Even so I remained very naive. I again only had one friend and didn’t like girls’ stuff. I built aeroplane models, collected stamps, read a lot and played piano. I didn’t have any boyfriends and had a blind date for my farewell dance at school! I didn’t need to work hard at school because I was bright and got good marks, but this all changed when I went to university and discovered that all was not moonshine and roses.
In my second year of university I joined a karate class and started fencing. Well, seeing as most of my characters were excellent at martial arts and could kick butt pretty well, I was looking to do the same! It turned out that the guys in the fencing club were interested in the same stuff I was and for the first time I made a whole bunch of friends and discovered social life!
My roommate’s parents had a record shop (no, not tapes and not CD’s!! The black round things with grooves! – kinda dates me, hey?) and she introduced me to popular music. Up until this point in my life, my music consisted of classical music and my mom’s favourites on radio (40’s and 50’s stuff – ugh!), so she learnt the classics and I learnt to rock! Needless to say, this impacted on my studies and I had to repeat some subjects!
But at last I had friends I could talk to and my life education took off with a bang.
I read Frank Herbert’s Dune books and couldn’t quite get a grip on it then…(I wasn’t too into politics, history and stuff yet) but it opened up whole new vistas and my inner life took on a broadness unparalleled. Soldiers and assassins, martial arts, dancing and the circus were the main themes. I absolutely loved the circus!
Another friend introduced me to Anne McCaffrey’s Dragons of Pern books and that was it, I was hooked on fantasy! Here was stuff I could relate to! Telepaths, magic, dragons, unicorns, sorcerers, healers with amazing powers – stuff I KNEW existed, I just did! Never mind how and where, it felt familiar and … known.
It took me five years to finish a three year Bachelor of Science Degree in Applied Mathematics and Computer Science, but I think I walked out knowing more about life and philosophy than most of my friends… or maybe I just caught up!
My inner world expanded, but didn’t quite sparkle…
until I started working…
and was staying with my mother!!!
Hee-e-e-e-LP!!!
Ooo! Telepaths! NOW I’m intrigued! I also love the line “all was not moonshine and roses!”