Who am I? Part the First.

Until recently I have strongly shied away from writing too much about myself. Allthough to some extent all writing reflects the author in some way.

And its hard to deny  that this is because of secrets. And not just my own, but the secrets of others. And as I write and tell the stories of my life, I may indeed change the names of some of the people in my life to protect the innocent, and no doubt the guilty too. 

When and where, and in what circumstances I was born, I may come to later in a later post. But for now I want to concentrate on secrets.

Teenagers keep sectets from their parents. This is because Teenagers are trying to find out who they are rather than who their parents want them to be, often want to try things their parents would disaprove of, or do things that might mean they are a different person to the one their parents want them to be. And then the biggest secret becomes, who the person actually is. Hidden from their closest family members, under an impersonation of the 'ideal'. And all because of love for the parent, just because one does not want to hurt their feelings.

But I get ahead of myself. I think I must begin with an early memory I have. Not my earliest memory, but I was not more thn 6 and prehaps only 5. 

I was with my mum and all three of my sisters in mum and dads room. it was the afternoon, I don't know which day. We were playing dress up. I loved it, it was great fun, just putting on all these clothes, daubing lipstick on, creating great clouds of pancake makeup powder, trying to work out what the mascara was for. 

I remember someone came in downstairs, mum saying something along the lines of, "that must be daddy", and leaving the room.

I can't remember wether it was then, or earlier, that I had found what looked to me like a flouncy pretty pink dress, and put it on. Either way when mum came back with dad in tow, I ran up to him wearing this, with makeup all over me, (some even on  my face) and said, doing a little twirl, "I'm a pretty princess".

And frankly the only words that seem to fit what happened next are, 'Something Broke!'

In retrospect I can see that dress in my minds eye, and my adult mind looking on the memory, seems to see a baby doll nighty. So I suspect that didn't help.

To be very fair, to both my parents, there wasn't any bawling and screaming, no one hit me, there wasn't a fight. Just a huge terrifying silence. And a look in my fathers eyes that went from shock, to a gradual hardening before settling on utter disgust, accompnied by a curling upper lip. Something I valued broke in that moment, and somehow even then I knew it couldn't ever be repaired. 

The rest of that evening was odd.

The first thing that happened was mum and dad left the room and a wispered conversation went on outside the door. Then mum came back in and we had to put everything away and stop playing.

I remember it as an awful evening. It was as if I had done something awful, but no one would tell me what it was. I knew it was about dressing up but I didn't know why.

I had this overwhelming sense that I was a huge dissapointment.

And so I learned to keep parts of myself secret. I was never allowed to play dress up or with my mothers make up again. And I remember one occasion not that long after, when I was shut out of the room and told to go play with my Lego, and I cried all alone in my room.

It didn't stop me however, I just did it in secret. I even found a good hiding place for my aquisitions.

But there hangs another tale.