Childhood and So-Forth

Despite having much of what I wanted as a child, there was such a sense of lack in my life, and this is what I think I have been trying to make up for ever since. I love expensive things, and beautiful aspirational things. I have always tried to get approval from others by either being beautiful, smelling beautiful or behaving beautifully. I am seen as ‘together’, but could I possibly be?

I was a beautiful baby. Photographers would stop my mother and ask her if they could photograph me for their displays. I had huge chocolate eyes with long eyelashes, rosebud lips and black curls. I was one of those “Oh! She’s SO beautiful!” children. And I was shy. So I would curl myself up in my mum’s arms trying to become invisible. Of course this made people want to be the one to get a smile out of me.

Worse was the impression that I should never be unhappy, or ungrateful because I was triply blessed. I had been chosen. I was pretty. My family was well off and I wanted for nothing. As I grew it became clear that I was also an intelligent child. But shy and insecure. So despite having it all...I became the brunt of other children’s taunts. This persisted throughout primary school, and this, along with my own general sense of being a piece of flotsam, helped to make my life miserable. Yet I loved school. I just didn’t like the children I had to share it with. If school had been me, the teachers, stationery and the library I would have been in utter bliss!

This impression of “it should be so easy for you” has been passed onto me and I now feel guilty if I’m not bouncing around in solid gold happiness. But I’m a person. I have stuff happening to me. Aging for example. I’ve been so focused on my physical appearance that the reality of getting older and finding grey hair and wrinkles is appalling. Who am I if I’m not beautiful anymore? If I’m not being clever all over the place? If I’m not rich like my parents? Actually I’ve found that my money personality is so far from what I grew up with. I long for simplicity. I like simple homes, rustic homes, shabby homes. I buy all my designer clothing from op shops...love the chase. I’m not against money, it can get you a sense of freedom, however, when it becomes the backbone of your life it gets more credence in life than it deserves. I think that having money conscious parents with lots of stuff made me want to be the opposite of that. Maybe. I just enjoy simplicity. I like homes that feel like homes not showpieces. I remember Danny’s parents had a room that housed a piano and an antique armoire with precious pieces of crystal and bibs and bobs like that.....no one even used that room. It was there purely for awe value. And it was sort of crap anyway. Why have something so pointless? His mother also had a pearl ring worth as much as someone’s home which never saw the light of day. Why? At least wear it. Pearls need body oil to keep their luster anyway so the poor ring wasn’t fulfilling it’s real purpose in life. Maybe that’s why I’m happy to have very little. It makes the few things I do have all that more precious.