Silly girl

Shortly before my seventeenth birthday, I went on a week-long camping trip with YFC (the charity I ended up doing a gap year with). I met hundreds of new people; Christians, my age, and they were wonderful and exciting. A new chapter of my life started that week.

Part of that chapter (a not inconsequential part) was my discovery of hugs. On the last night, after a waterfight and a bedtime story (a Mister Men book, though I forget which one), I ended up in the arms of a young man called Matthew. I'd never met him before that week - odd, considering the vast crossover between any two lives on the Isle of Wight. We cuddled into the early hours, just stood up in the middle of the campsite enjoying holding each other. At an age when many of my peers had lost the big V, I was still astonished that anyone would willingly touch me. Yes, my self-esteem was that low. I found a spot on the back of his neck that made him shiver, and for me that was a breakthrough - the beginning of the realisation that I, too, could be desirable.

I remember him telling me then that this didn't mean anything special, and that some girls got the wrong idea.

"I think I can manage not to fall for you," I said, possibly raising one eyebrow sardonically in what turned out to be utterly misplaced confidence. It took me a good two years to get over him properly; two years wasted obsessing over a guy I could never really have been happy with. Eventually, I met Gavin and realised that stupid unrequited crushes are best left in high school.

All that was over six years ago now, and a lot can change in six years. I grew up. I  left high school, did my gap year, found myself, lost myself, moved away from home, started university, found love, had a three-year relationship, moved to Cardiff, made new friends... and yet...

"You know I'm no good, right?"

"Yeah. You can join the rest of the world on that one."

I have learned exactly nothing. History, it seems, is doomed to repeat itself. I am a moron.

On the other hand

When I was learning to write, I had a neat little system for when my hand (unused to all the complicated lettering) got tired. I'd switch to the other one. My teachers didn't notice, but I was ambidextrous until I was eight. Eventually, my mother picked up on the fact that my writing was a lot neater at some times than at others. She watched me writing, and noticed this little trait; something that hadn't seemed strange to me, and had gone unnoticed by everyone else.

My writing with my left hand was scruffy, and my writing with my right hand was neat. So my mother claims, and I suppose I should take her word for it; although as I'm mostly left-handed now (I eventually got used to all the strenuous words and settled on one hand) that seems strange.

I say 'mostly': I write, draw, and paint with my left hand. Most other endeavours - stirring a cooking pot, holding a tennis racket, lifting shopping bags - I undertake with my right.

I mention this now, because I'm starting at square one again. My boyfriend gave me a cute little calligraphy set a few months ago, and after suddenly deciding that I'm interested in typography, I've finally picked it up. But, you know, being a lefty has its disadvantages, including smudged ink and the nib being slanted in entirely the wrong direction. Oddly, I decided that the easiest way to tackle this challenge is to be right-handed for this. So I'm learning to write right from the beginning. I'm mastering an unwilling pen and a stubborn hand, and forcing them to comply, just like I did in primary school. And you know what? It's actually really exciting!

Learning to Read

When I was a young child, I had a very vivid imagination. This combined with a fairly sharp mind led me to develop an almost obsessive interest in books. I'd like to claim that reading is something I've always loved, but truth be told, it wasn't until I was told that I was very good at it - and taken off the primary school reading books to be let loose in the library at the age of nine - that I discovered how special it really was.

The first one I found in that library was the Story of Tracy Beaker, by Jacqueline Wilson: a book I chose entirely by its cover, and loved entirely for its imperfect, attitude-filled heroine. It took several years and several readings before I saw all the hints at just how biased she was as a narrator.

Between my newfound love of reading, writing, drawing, and staring out of windows, I viewed other kids as quite an inconvenient necessity - much like the set work our teachers gave us when I had better things to do.

Middle school was worse in a lot of ways. The constant buzz of other people in the background got louder, and it became clear that they didn't all approve of me. Naturally, my response to this was to spend more time alone in the library. I discovered Trillions by Nicholas Fisk when I was eleven or twelve, and that's how sci-fi got me. I read the Chronicles of Narnia (all seven, repeatedly), and that's how fantasy got me. I found that after a while, if you read hard enough, the buzz faded altogether and I could ignore the fact that I didn't really understand how other people worked.

In high school, however, there was no such refuge. The library was where people went to hang out, and even Discworld couldn't distract me from the fact that I needed to learn to interact. It took a couple of years and some very tolerant friends before I understood what 'other people' are at the age of fifteen. 

It finally started to make a kind of sense when I read - I forget which book now, but it echoed my own realisation - that "everybody is 'I'." The baffling buzz of a thousand confusing students became almost comprehensible as the clamour of a thousand voices trying to be heard. And at the age of seventeen, I learned the golden key to unlocking a person, nine times out of ten: smiling, saying hello, and being interested. And that the remaining one time isn't necessarily my fault, and it isn't necessarily theirs.

Am I happier now? Yes, in a lot of ways. If I ever have kids, I'll try to teach them about people before I teach them to read, although both skills must be learned over a lifetime. I miss being completely swallowed by books, it doesn't happen nearly as much these days; and I still misread people a lot of the time - but I still stare out of windows and daydream. So that's alright.