Laila - who is that?
Well, difficult question, that's for sure, especially since I feel like I change myself like others change their underwear - well maybe men, woman change it too often for me to keep up with my screwed personality.
But if I start from the beginning we should end up setting it right in the end - what might be some when tomorrow morning, but well way to go - and who needs sleep anyway?!
When I was a baby, I actually lived in a huge garden with my parents in an old travel trailer in the middle of cologne. It was kinda idyllic, really, chicken and goats, a garden of vegetables, we made our own cheese and milk and sold that - I don't really know how that actually worked economically, but it did, and life was not exactly bad, a but naive looking back, but good.
My brother was born about two years later and the trailer kinda became to small for two kids. So my parents lent money from my grandparents and bought an ancient house on the countryside. It was a tiny village with about 5 inhabitants, 20 minutes car ride from the next village big enough to contain a shop, primary school, kindergarten and sports clubs.
My brother was lucky, neighbours of ours had a son in his age and he had a best friend already, I wasn't so fortunate - my only friend back then lived too far away to walk and was 5 years older then me - but at least she was a girl, and almost as desperate for friends as I was. She was something like my idol, she knew so much more about school, and boy groups and diets - all things that were still complete myths to me.
But well though the valley we lived in was beautiful, live there proved to be les then my mother had expected - something I will come back to later, because that seems to be her fate.
The house we had bought was completely dilapidated, it rained into the attic, and soon nothing but huge hornets lived there, the basement drowned in mud each spring and the other stables etc. that belonged to the old farm house could not even be stepped into without getting into mortal danger.
It was fun back then, but looking back I know that is doomed to fail, especially after she kicked my father out, and we were alone suddenly.
My mother got more and more problems with her own mind and us, she didn't clean up often, and I though she was a good friend to us, she didn't teach me many things that I find useful in a daily life now. But I don't want to be ungrateful - I am the person I am, with problems yes, but I have other strengths that my mother helped me to develop.
I hated my father back then, I actually don't remember why - partly because he didn't seem able to cope with me getting into puberty but maybe unconsciously I hated him for leaving us - though it really wasn't his fault, no one can live with my mom if he doesn't has to.
School became a problem, in the small town school where everybody knew the other I was an outside because my mom was. I stink people used to tell me, and looking back it might have been true cause my mom didn't really care for stuff like that - I didn't know what deodorant was until the age of 12. They hated me already in primary school, and it got only worse in grammar school. I gained weight - frustration weight, and well you can imagine that this wasn't exactly helpful. When things got so hard that I had to fear about my physical and mental health I started to pretend to be sick and didn't go to school for about 3 month. When the headmaster threatened with consequences, my mother threatened back with a psychologist and he let me go to find a new school.
I was in 7th grade then, and repeated the year at the new school in cologne - city. It was great really, though of course the mobbing didn't stop momentarily. I was a mental wreck and that is the kind of kid other kids chose to pick on, but I found my still best friend, and together it was easier to go through - I found hobbies like working with the red cross, new friend and things I could gain self esteem of. Also my marks improved a lot and after a few years I had established my place and respect.
I'd had my first boyfriend with 15, he was a pen friend whom I met, but it was just another occasion in the line of disappointments. I hoped for love and care, what he gave me was the opposite, he raped me, but I am only aware of that since half a year, or so. I had started to believe what I had told everybody, that he was wonderful and that I am still a virgin.
At home it got worse, we finally moved away from the old house and sold it. My mom invested everything into a dream she had - a project for esoteric courses and seminaries - of course it failed, 80.000 DM (40.000 €) down the drain and we were poor again, living from the welfare - and that only after a few month. It is even harder to accept that after you'd had some luxury for a while and I began to loose respect for my mother. Her mental disorders became worse after that breakdown and when I was 16 she finally realized that she needed help and me and my brother were taken away from the youth office of the state. We had to go into a cheep boarding school - away from my friends, my class and everything I had worked so hard for during the past years.
I hated the new school, it was huge and so less intimate then my old one. I didn't cope so well with the new relationship between teachers and pupils, I missed my friends, hobbies and also of course my mom, and the freedom and privacy of a home. I hated it, and when I was 17 I convinced the woman of the youth office to pay me an apartment. For them it was cheaper and I had my freedom back, my friend, my old school, and finally I could establish a good relationship to my father.
But other things turned out to be harder - things I now realized my mom never taught me, like discipline. I started to push important things out of my mind and always delayed them - I still struggle with that.
I started to try and cope with my past, the rape, my mother, the mobbing - I still have overweight, I still haven't been in love with anybody close to me, Elijah is easy, so is Viggo or someone for another continent - a fictional character can give me butterflies - guys I know don't seem to be able to yet. I don't really have contact to my mother lately and I don't want to, but I love my father dearly and see him often. I love my friends and love to go out with them - so you see: I am a normal girl, I love to write, to dream and movies. And well, I struggle but I have fun, and I have great plans for the future - all I want is to become more, more then I am now.
all love
Laila
PS:
My Interview with the Author