Autobiography

1

        "Boyfriends come and go, but friends are forever."

A phrase I never quite related to. Everyone's lives revolves on who they are surrounded by as they age through the years. The people they love, the people who love them and reciprocate that feeling, and those who stick around long enough to watch you grow even though some go. 

This ends up being the basis of one's character. The shaping of their personality, in more ways than one. But how do you explain feeling lost in places that you never belonged to and are not a part of anymore?

I have had my fair share of Irish goodbyes. I was never one for the sappy airport drives and 'last get-together' parties. 

Or maybe I was. This was, after all, a decision my parents made. 

As was every other decision in my entire life. 

People tell you to find yourself, find aspects that make you, you. When it came to me, that was easier said than done.

I don't really know the exact moment when I began allowing others to take the wheel for me, but it must have been before I could even verbally communicate. Because I know I randomly gained consciousness in the middle of getting my ears pierced when I was three years old, and I remember agreeing silently to what gems my mother had picked out for me. 

To this day I never liked them. Fast forward years later, I ended up burying one of them in a completely different country, and little did I know that would be my next stop. 

And if it was up to me, I would have hosted the goodbye parties. I would have accepted the departing gifts from my friends. I would have gotten the closure that I so badly long for still. It would have probably changed me for the better emotionally. 

There is a lot that I would change about the course of my life, but I know enough to understand that I would not be who I am without those decisions, even if they weren't my own. 

At the end of the day, you don't hear everyone you meet saying they were born in one place, bounced around in a couple other ones and somehow ended up in front of you today. So I guess that makes me, me. 

Let's rewind back to the moment I was getting my ears pierced. Would I say that was a core memory? Not exactly. But was it a memory that stuck with me and somehow set sail to all the challenges I was about to face? Most definitely. 

In that little shop somewhere in the streets of Athens, I could see all of the glistening gems around me, as the warm toned lights shone through the entire place. A lot of murmuring began to sound around me as I woke up and my soul became aware of all of my surroundings at once, realising this was my body and I was in control. 

"Look at these honey," My mother said next to me, not necessarily asking for my opinion, but simply stating her choice as she finalised it with a confirming look to the lady piercing my ears. 

They were a pair of incredibly tiny hoops, that fit my earlobe like a glove, and had a section of red looped around it and dark blue on the opposite side. All I could do was smile even though I disliked the colour red. It felt as though I was taking my first lady-like step even though I just realised I could breathe at the same time. 

The sharp second-long pain that the needle punched through was enough to make the shining lights even sparklier in my eyes, but not a singular tear was shed. 

And that was the moment the emotions began to hide. 

Not even a few months later from that I ended up being faced with my first core memory, which surprisingly was my own decision. I remember sitting in my living room, left completely alone as my parents argued about something in the kitchen, and coming across the music channel. Usually at that time the kids' shows had ended, so I had nothing to do but browse the options. 

The moment the screen loaded, my soul connected to the orchestra that appeared in front of me. The camera zoomed into the string section, but it did not seem appealing. Brass was even more boring in my mind. But in a flash the piano came into view, and it somehow stuck with me for the rest of the week. 

My parents would find me tapping on the edge of our coffee table pretending they were the black and white keys I had seen days before, and they popped the question. "Do you want to try piano?" 

I hesitated, not knowing whether or not responding with my choice would be the right way to go about it. I tried my luck anyways. I nodded, and at the time I had no idea why my mother's face began to glow, but I was excited to have made my first own decision. 

Not long after that I was accompanied into a music store. The lights were dimmed, but I remember handpicking my little electric Yamaha as if it were yesterday. As I pressed through the buttons to roam by the song options there were, I heard Für Elise for the first time, thinking it was a beautiful and unreachable piece to play, having no clue that I would one day be able fly through the notes, and it would quite literally be the least of my worries to learn.