Wednesday 23 February 2011

Hogwarts, Hole, Christina Agulera and The Irrational Mourning Of Sirius Black.

I wrote about things that happened to me mainly by the actions of other people when i was younger, but there's some other things that happened around the same time that were mine to have. Some of this stuff i haven't really told anyone about, and this goes through to later than i said in the last one. Basically, I can't seen a chronological line of memories. At all. It just doesn't work for me. I can't figure out why. Anyway. Here's some other stuff that went on around the same time.

I got Harry Potter books pretty much as soon as they came out. Earlier than other people. One christmas when i was maybe 10? I don't know. Certainly around that age. My aunty Kellie spent a lot of her life living in America. New York. So i didn't see her all that much while she lived there. But she always sent the most fabulous gifts on occasions. For christmas one year, she sent me the first four Harry Potter books, with the Cluedo game and a fabric bag of Bertie Botts Every Flavour Beans. The books were beautiful, too. The American ones in hardback, with the illustrations on cover and every chapter.  I suppose she knew how much i would love them, because i was always a massive reader. Anyway, so i read through the books like lightening. I loved them. They had a massive impact on my life. Both of my Harry Potter stories are really sad and pathetic. So don't hate me for it.

So, first one happened when i was eleven. Which is when the wizards that go to Hogwarts get their letters telling them they're going to Hogwarts. Probably my least favourite birthday. Not because i didn't have a good day, because i did. My family and friends were fabulous. Just because i waited. All day. I waited and waited and waited for my letter. It seems so utterly pathetic on reflection. Even then i remember feeling ridiculous, despite no one knowing that i was waiting. Anyway, the letter didn't come and i was really upset about it. That's pretty much what happened. It doesn't matter now.
My second story doesn't make sense without me continuing the story, so i may as well.

High school. I started at a rough, shitty Roman Catholic high school. Which was meant to be okay bus wasn't. My friend Matthew Peel got in a fight as a year 7 and a year 9 beat him up so bad during break time [with everyone around] that an air ambulance had to pick him up and take him to ICU. He didn't come back to school, but of what i hear he's fine now.

So now you know what the school was like, this is what i was like. I'd just started listening to music i like. My cousin had given me a copy of Hole's album Live Through This. I had a Nirvana CD too. I dabbled in Green Day [they used to be good] and Blink 182. But Hole was where it was at. I loved it. So i listened to it on my way to school. I was awkward, i read a lot, I'd had braces throughout my childhood so i was a nerd, I liked math and science and english and history. I wore a boys jacket with a patches of my favourite bands sewn into it. I was pretty much just a walking target.

I made some friends, got my first boyfriend but mainly just got the shit kicked out of me. It was pretty much 60% the shit being kicked out of me. So i got more excruciatingly shy. I didn't talk, actually. For a long time. I ran to and from school. We had an Au Pair who looked after us, which we normally had only during summers in my younger life, but now we had one for summers and one for after school. The after school was nice. My parents knew her, she seemed lovely. She lived really close to school, and so i started just running to her house after school, then we would go and pick up my brother and we'd all go home together. So i started doing that. Running to her house after school.

This isn't a particularly fond memory, and i don't like looking back on it. But this is how I'm going to deal with all of this crap, so I'm going to just go right ahead. After school, i was late to leave because i'd had home economics [basically cookery] last and it was a friday so I'd spent more time cleaning up. I was running about 10 minutes late. So i ran down to my Au Pair's house and she'd left to pick up my brother already. So, i had to walk past not only my school, but the rival, rougher school next to it. I thought that everyone would be gone, so i just walked. Pretty much the stupidest thing i've ever thought considering it was 20 minutes after school so obviously everyone cool was smoking down some alley, being general wankers. So i walked past both schools. Look, the details are completely insignificant. They kicked the absolute shit out of me. Not just that, but they used an array of phrases that they felt summed me up. They really laid into me about how i acted, how i looked, what i did and the beating itself was really, really bad. They might have been thick as shit, but they didn't leave a mark on my face. So after that lovely ordeal, i walked home. When i got home my Au Pair wasn't here. I was in year 7 and some shitheads had beaten the absolute shit out of me and i couldn't get in my own house. So i sat against the gate to our back garden and was just crying my fucking eyes out. Then the neighbor said i could come inside and wait, so i did. Turns out the Au Pair was worried that i hadn't turned up anywhere and was driving around looking for me for an hour before she checked the neighbors. I didn't eat dinner and went upstairs and then listened to whatever i was listening to. My parents got home and bollocked me for going missing for so long and going into the neighbors house, i didn't say a thing about my day and just sat and watched MTV. In a horrible turn of events, Christina Agulera's Beautiful had recently been released. I don't know if you've seen that music video or heard that song, but it just killed me. A few bars in and before my parents very eyes i just absolutely broke down. They must have known i wasn't crying about them because they immediately stopped shouting at me. I don't cry in front of my parents. I didn't as a child, a teen and i don't do it now. I'm not open about that sort of thing. So, when i had what can only be described as the cry of my life, my parents figured something was up. So they were really nice to me.

A few months later, we moved back to Germany. And i can't watch Christina Agulera's music video to Beautiful without crying.

Since the Christina Agulera incident [which my parents and i have had a mutual understanding to never speak about] I had been absolutely miserable. I'd flat out refused to go to school and had been forced there every day. My parents, to cheer me up, bought me the new Harry Potter book. The 5th one. I'd started reading it on the plane on the way to Germany. I was still miserable and i was moving to somewhere where i knew nobody again. This book was literally everything i had going for me. Actually, no. One particular character was a beacon of light in an otherwise dark world, but we'll get back to that. My nose was in this book all the time. When we first moved, we had to live in this hotel room for a while before we could move into our house. It was small, cramped, but temporary. And i was quiet and my brother would sit in front of the TV so there was no real annoyance. So i sat in the bedroom, reading my book. Let's get back to that one character who meant the world to me. Literally the world. He'd been beaten and cheated and people had tried to break his spirit and take his soul, but never succeeded. I could relate. An unbelievable amount. Yes, Sirius Black was pretty much everything i held onto while reading that book. If he could survive everything that life had thrown at him, then so could I. I was young, but i placed FAR too much worth into his character. I was too involved, on reflection. In case you haven't read the books, he dies. He dies a horrible death. He gets killed by the people that had trod on him and tried to keep him down and break his spirit. THOSE guys killed him. The ones that he'd fought long and hard against. So, as you can imagine i was a little upset.

No, i was absolutely distraught. My mum was in the next room while i was reading the chapter and my dad was at work. I cried hysterically. My mother had no idea what was wrong or if i was hurt or ill or anything because i was crying so hard i couldn't breathe, or talk. It took her an age to get me to say what was wrong. It was all pretty horrific. I mourned him. He was me. I died. It was totally irrational but I'd built it in my head and couldn't help it. My parents were increasingly worried about me, but they didn't have to be. When i started school, it was all a lot easier.

I know this has been literally the most depressing thing ever, compared to the last one, but this is the BAD part. The good part comes soon. It was just a horrible, horrible time for me and probably why I'm so miserable in general now. But I'm glad of it. These events were significant. Sorry if I've ruined your day, but i never asked anyone to read this. I said, this is for me to sort this shit out.

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