A Life in Words

This first post is basically a primer: a little pre-history to give you an idea of where and who I was when I began this journey, and a couple of ‘disclaimers’ of sorts…

Firstly, I’d like to stress that, while everything I have written actually happened and involves real people (whose names have been reduced to initials in an attempt to somewhat disguise their identity), my descriptions are entirely subjective. This is the nature of a diary. My personal take is just that, an opinion. To any reasonable mature adult, it should be completely clear that my subjectivity does not define other people and events – these are simply experiences you will view through my eyes… my 12 year old eyes, in the beginning. I will be the main bearer of any embarrassment, believe me!

Which leads me to my second ‘disclaimer’. The opinions, feelings and such that I express in these journal entries are historic. Three decades have passed, and I have matured and grown considerably (well I’d hope so) so those opinions – in most cases – will not reflect the person I now am and the beliefs I now hold. This is one of the main reasons I am putting everything out there: to wear some responsibility for my Life, and to be as open, and true to Me as I can be.

Born in ‘BrisVegas’ in 1970, we moved to Cairns (the Far North) when I was five because my father was appointed to manage the dying Chrysler car dealership there. We lived in a beautiful north-western suburb, Freshwater, close to our primary school and some of the girlfriends I still have to this day.

Unbeknownst to me, Dad lost his job, but began a ‘family’ business in commercial cleaning (which ultimately led to the cleaning supplies business he still owns to this day). Whilst our new house in Freshwater was being built in 1980, my parents’ relationship began to encounter difficulty and when the inevitable split finally occurred, my sister and I chose to live with Mum, who set about living her life for us: working, building (yet another) new home as well as lovingly doting on the two of us.

I did well at primary school academically, though physically I was neither athletic, nor beautiful. I was chubby and had buck teeth (from nocturnal thumb-sucking) with the added charm of a huge gap between the front upper incisors, so open-mouthed smiling was almost torturous for me. I always lucked out at parties when Catch’n’Kiss or Spin-the-Bottle games were played. My primary school crush was long term, and he never knew I existed.

The diarising began with a crazy ‘calendar planner’ I’d bought from our school book club at the end of Grade Seven (1982).

It had stickers and lots of silly trivia, but I realized soon enough that it didn’t really give you much space to write a lot in each day. So I sought out a proper diary.  At twelve years of age and about to start high school, I didn’t yet have enough self-discipline – or drive – to stick at this new ‘hobby’, so there are a great many days missing from my life in 1983.

From 1 January 1984 there are very few days missing, right up to this very point in time (and most of those were the result of excessive partying in my late teens) so very little of my time on this planet remains unrecorded. Please, enjoy the ride…