In his memoir, “Angela’s Ashes”, Frank Mccourt writes, “When I look back on my childhood I wonder how I survived at all. It was, of course, a miserable childhood: the happy childhood is hardly worth your while.”

Where my childhood is concerned, the experience was quite the opposite. Mostly happy, and pretty ordinary, it certainly isn’t the stuff that best-selling memoirs are made of. Fun family holidays twice a year, similar aged cousins to go bananas with, 5 interesting aunts to look up to, a mother that would set up little treasure hunts around the house for my big brother and I, and a father that still refers to me as his baby, whenever introducing me to new people – this was my early years. And although it might not have provided me with gritty and depressing material for my “one day” novel, it certainly made my little heart truly, truly happy.

 And oh boy, what a happy ol’ chap I was.  Kind, and cheerful with a fantastical imagination, I was always coming up with little ideas, inventing new games, and conjuring up the most amazing stories in my head. Later on I discovered that public speaking was my thing, and so I entered school competitions and won 1 or 2 awards. Similarly, I enjoyed essay writing – with so many thoughts and opinions going on in my head, I found this to be a suitable outlet.  Who would have thought that as an adult, I would get paid for doing this?

But one day things changed – something inside of me shifted. This once confident, cheery and chubby boy smiled less and became more, and more withdrawn.  Being pudgy might have been cute as a kid, but as a teen, my weight wasn’t very well received. But the overarching truth was that I was different. And at the time nobody, including myself, knew how to deal with how different I was.  Then high school came and I met a bunch of amazing friends, and together we ran wild, fueled with angst, confusion and all the passion that comes with youth. Holding each others’ hands through all the scrapes and bruises of teen life, in this pack of lionesses I found understanding, acceptance and even protection.   

During the Christmas holidays, while scratching around my dad’s study, I came across this picture of 10 year old me.  Looking at the picture I remembered this little boy so well – cheerfully plump, kind, creative, inquisitive and deeply imaginative, he loved cake, watched “Gone with the Wind” about 17 times before his 10^th birthday, went to pottery classes and played the keyboard.

I miss that kid, and hope to run into him again real soon.