The shorter version of my story

My life story

[ravenmcarthur]

11-14

When I started 5th grade I had to change my classmates and teachers. My class teacher was teaching us a lot of the subjects and all of a sudden there would be one teacher per subject. I was scared, because of the new change and I didn’t knew if I would fit. Some of my old classmates were staying in the same school, but they were in a different class, so we weren’t together. 11 was when my period came and when my body started developing. It was developing too fast. I had to start wearing a bra, because my breasts were starting to hurt if there was nothing supporting them. The boys were getting frisky and they used to spank the girls butts, or try and touch their boobs. I would lie if I say I didn't like the attention. After all I wasn’t the prettiest, nor the most popular. The same year my mom told my grandma she doesn’t want me to be with a short hair anymore, I’m a girl and should have long hair. So I started growing it. My mom and aunt had short hairs until 17-18 years of age and my mom didn’t wanted my grandma to have the same control she had over her. I have imagined before what it would feel like to have long hair. I thought it’s going to be heavy. It didn’t feel like that, it was a struggle though, as I never had long hair and didn’t knew what to do with it. One thing I really despised was that the hair on my legs and armpits was starting to grow and my mom and grandma said I can’t shave. If I shave it, it will grow even more. I wasn’t planning on shaving once and stopping, but I couldn’t get my point across. All the other girls in class were shaving their legs, at least, and I was wearing long pants so nobody knows. What kind of sick game was that?

I started going out of the apartment and playing with other kids. I met a neighbor girl that I still consider a friend, even though we are so far apart now. She wanted to be a dentist and she became one eventually. She was super smart and I wanted to be like her. I was lazy though and hated school. I met my first crush through her. He was in her class and his blue eyes were one of a kind. Of course he didn’t gave 2 fucks about me, but I was dreaming. One day I got over him. I was 12 when I had my first boyfriend and my first kiss. He was older than me with a couple of years, but I’m not sure how many. People were telling me to stay away from him, because he was a bad boy. Who listened? Not me. Those blond curls were all I could see. Now I can say he was a douche bag, who wanted to have sex, as he was telling me so many times. Like I said before, my family didn’t afford a lot of things. One thing I wanted was a computer, but we didn’t have the money for it. I had some money saved, from birthdays and name-days, and he said that for this amount he can find me a computer. So stupid me gave him the money and I didn’t see him for a very long time. I can’t remember if we ever contacted his mom to say what happened, or we just let it go. In any case, I hated my stupidity and blindness. Eventually he ended up in Juvenal hall and then in my class. He was still fucking dreamy, but I never made the same mistake twice.

I remember I had a friend that was having sex, smoking cigarettes and she was getting away with it. Anyway, she was being cool and shit. So, I remember one day going to a coffee shop with her and she was like “so, do you wanna try?” Well sure, I wanna be cool too. I was 14 years old when I started smoking. My mom is a smoker and she used to tell me that if I start smoking, I should tell her. She will not do anything to me, but just let her know. I was afraid to tell her and I never did. Once, I had 2 cigarettes in my jacket pocket and she found them, so she asked me if I smoke, I said yes and after that we started smoking together. Those years were sort of a middle point of my life. At 14 I had to choose to move to another school or stay in the same one. I stayed. I learned not to trust handsome boys and started smoking. Not my proudest moment, but lessons were learned.

[ravenmcarthur]

6-10

When I was 6 I started school. I was feeling proud, because all the other kids were 7. I wasn’t smarter or better than the rest, but I was proud. And also it wasn’t like I wouldn’t turn 7 and still be first grade, but I was born in the winter and school starts in September. Dumb kid! I think in school I learned what is jealousy, hate, envy, betrayal, etc. all the “good stuff”. I really wanted to be liked and be one of the “cool kids”. Simply because I really didn’t like myself. I had a very short, boy-ish hairstyle and I was probably overweight for my age. Guess who didn’t go out to run around with the kids and lose all the pounds... So, to be liked you gotta make some connections, so to say. There was a really rich girl in my class and she knew how to exploit that. I wanted to be friends with her and I was doing everything to get her attention. If she wanted something, I was doing it. I was saying I like the stuff she likes, I was liking the music she was liking (one good thing came out if it and it’s O-Zone), and that’s how we ended up being “friends”. If she was making fun of another kid, I was following. Well,  she was making fun of me too, but I was swallowing that like a champion. Another way to be super cool and awesome was to be friends with the guys. So, same tactic. I was playing Pokemon, Yu-gi-oh cards, pretending I was a WWE wrestler. And, I was staying after school in school, because again everybody was working, I got to be very good friends with the guys as well. In the group where we had to stay for a few hours before we were picked up, we were talking about gross things and all the games boys were playing. I became a tomboy and I got myself protection. If some other kid was picking on me the boys were defending me, because I was part of their group. This is still applicable now, because I have hard time talking about almost anything with girls, but no problem if I need to go strike a conversation with a guy. One thing I miss from those years it’s called “green school”. It is in spring and the class goes to a mountain resort for 5 days. Half of the day you study and do homework and the rest you can do ski lessons, go to a museum or just do nothing. Then at night there is a “disco” at the hotel’s restaurant. I was going every year even though it was sort of expensive. My mom let me do everything, she didn’t want to stop me doing something I wanna do. When she was younger she wanted to do sports and my grandma told her, she isn’t spending enough time on her lessons, so she stopped her from going to practice. She also wanted to draw, and she was very good at that, but again, my grandma stopped her. It was around that time that my grandma didn’t let me go out and play with the other kids from the block. I was always playing by myself in my room. I have great imagination now, but poor communication skills. I’m still pretty awkward when I meet new people. The first time she let me out was when I was 10. Because I was staying so much at home, I got to explore all the junk we had. We had 4 bookcases with numerous small drawers and they were full of stuff. One drawer in my room, was particularly interesting to me. I had clothes inside and on the bottom, hidden under them a Playboy magazine. I used to look at the photos and if I hear that somebody was coming towards my room, I was hiding it and taking a toy pretending to play. I was around 8-9 years old. I could stay and watch at the photos all day long if nobody was disturbing me. I was getting aroused (or whatever you want to call it, as I was still a kid) at the look of a naked woman. I still remember the model on the cover. In another drawer there were old magazines with erotic stories in them. They didn’t have so many photos in them, but the stories themselves were fascinating to me. They aren’t written for female audience, so they had more detailed description of the woman than the man. Reading those in hiding was another favorite activity for me. People nowadays ask me how I know for sure that I’m bisexual and I tell them that memory + the time when I dated a girl for 1+ year. A lot of people here on the Balkans are very closed-minded. They don’t understand/accept LGBTQ+ people and think that it’s either sickness or just a phase. This is not anything that can be cured, it’s not illness/sickness of the body and mind. With this chapter’s end I will end my first 4 years of school. They were not very nice for me, as I was struggling with the kids at school, who thought I’m a boy, because of my short hair. I was bullied, nothing physical, but mental instead. I learned how to look forward and keep any negativity behind me. I learned how to complain and do nothing about it, because it’s easier. Not a very good quality. I learned that it’s better to be a true friend and have real friends than to be fake and alone.

[ravenmcarthur]

Early childhood - 0-6

My life starts one winter in Eastern Europe, 25 years ago. In a middle class family, if you can call it that. We never had the money to buy big, expensive, useless shit, but we were never struggling with day-to-day life. The memories written here are getting foggier and foggier, some of them I’m not sure if are real or made up. My first one is how I stay in front of the big white wall in my living room. I’m in my bath robe, starring at the wall and feeling sad. Why? I have no idea. I know I just took a shower and I’m feeling sad. Is this how my life is going to be ? A sad story ? Because of my first memory. Is that memory controlling my whole life? The second one I have is how my mother and father are fighting. I’m sitting on the floor, next to the bed and I’m crying. My mom says “look, the kid is crying because of you”. That’s all I can remember. No subject, no more words. Only them fighting, me crying, end of the memory. I’m not sure when they got divorced. My mom says I was 3. My father was supposed to pick me up from kindergarten, but he never did. So she knew that he left. She told me later stories about him. He used to go to casinos a lot, bet money and lose. He was addicted, is what she said. When I was born they bought a washing machine, for which he had to pay for a year. Instead he was playing the money and after the year ended, the washing machine wasn’t paid. How my family fixed that, I have no idea, never asked. He used to ask relatives for money and he never gave them back. A lot of them still don’t talk to us. He stole my grandma and grandpa’s wedding rings and then he left. She told me that after the divorce he used to call her and tell her, he will abduct me and she was scared for a very long time. One day when she was bringing me to school she saw him in front of the school and told the teachers to keep an eye on me. After that day nothing happened. No more calls, no more treats, nothing. Until one day 2 years ago, when we got a friend request on Facebook from him. Both of us. It was ridiculous. I grew up without you dad, I don’t need you now. I liked going to the kindergarten. I was playing with the toys, with the kids. Teachers were telling me I hold skip first grade, because I could do simple math and read a little bit (note that they start teaching you how to read and write in school). I was getting some English lessons, nothing fancy of course. But eventually we were learning poems about rabbits and cats and I got to tell them to my family. I remember telling one about the Easter Bunny to everybody. Can’t remember it anymore. They used to tell me, how well I was saying it, you know parents. But that made me think I wanted to one day visit America. I hated going to the kindergarten in summer, because they put all of the groups together and I didn’t knew the other kids. I had to go, because everybody was working and they couldn’t leave a small kid all alone. There was a girl from another group that was bullying me by biting me on the arm, pulling my hair, pinching me, etc. Guess what? I never told the teachers. My grandma used to say “if you get hit, turn the other cheek”. Piss poor advice grandma! So I was turning the other cheek. I think that my self esteem died then. If a 4-5 year old has a self esteem. I remember one day, when I was 6, a neighbor came home to tell us about the school close by. When I heard about it, I wanted to go. I didn’t want to sleep anymore at noon and I really wanted to go to school for that reason (I want to be able to sleep at noon, but I cannot do that now). My mom brought me to the kindergarten to tell everyone that I will start school and it all ended there.

[ravenmcarthur]

Finally decided it was time

To whoever is reading this: - Excuse my English, it’s not the language I’m born with (is there an auto-correct on Tumblr?) - I’m doing this to summarize my memories and get to a point where I know who I am. - I’m doing it for myself and I don’t care if the story reaches anybody.