"Never Forget"

Hi. Before I start rambling on about how unfair everything is and how life is just a horrible 'thing' which we have been subjected to through no choice of our own... I would like to apologise  for the intensity of this entry and the flashbacks you may endure. Sorry.

Take yourself back in your mind to probably the most embarrassing moment of your childhood. Not that one; have another think. Bingo! That dreaded moment your parents decide to teach you all about the 'birds and the bees' and how 'special hugs' make babies. Now that is a moment pretty much everyone I know will recall as an embarrassing moment from their childhood. On the other hand, when people ask me what mine is it usually refers to me talking about how i fell over in front of a lot of people or how i split my trousers in assembly when walking up to the stage. In a sort of weird way, I kind of feel a little left out having not endured the 'birds and the bees'.

Can you remember your first year of secondary school? When everyone thought talking about sex was cool and how embarrassing the 'birds and the bees' was. I couldn't really join in. You feel so foreign in an environment you are told you are supposed to be in. Being surrounded by other children and not knowing anything they are talking about. I just felt so invisible. For some unknown reason, I was so desperate to learn these things.

Did anyone experience that awkward moment of walking into science class to be faced with a sea of cucumbers and being shown by a teacher how to put a condom on? AWKWARD. Especially for someone who doesn't know what a condom does or is!!! It's funny looking back now. At the time; not so much. There was also that time I walked into maths class all prepared with my times table homework - lets just say we didn't do times tables that lesson.

At the current age of 20, I am still unable to comprehend the fact that practically 99.9% of people I know would have learnt all the basic life things like: periods, how to put in a tampon and how babies are made, just from their parents. Not me. I'm the 1%. To be completely honest with you, I've never really seen myself as the minority but I guess the world has a funny way of making us not really know who we are.

I'll tell you what I do know.

I am forever grateful to my teachers who took on the role of mother. Those teachers who went beyond their role in the educational sector to provide me with a maternal bond that I was deprived of. I am forever indebted to those who gave up their time to teach me all the things that my mother should have taught me. Looking back, I've realised how lucky I have been in such an unlucky circumstance. Having the people I did back then allowed me to keep up with all the other kids as opposed to being left practically drifting with no knowledge of anything.

The only message I can really give from this is to never forget these memories. These experiences, we see as horrible at the time, are the memories we look back on and actually help us to justify the people we are today. Once the experience has happened, good or bad, it stays with you forever. Keep these memories alive. Share your memories. You start to realise we are all quite similar without even realising it.

So, what do me and you have in common? 

'Get Ready For It'

I'm not 100% sure on how to start one of these things but I'll give it my best shot. Here Goes.

Having being told constantly by family and friends that I have a story to tell, it's a little hard to ignore them. I'm not saying my story is more important than everybody else's, I guess it's just I feel like my story isn't being heard like it should be.

Before the story gets deep, let me tell you a little about myself.

Slap bang in the middle of 1999 ( well almost) my parents graced the world with my existence (is that pushing it?). There was nothing out-of-the-ordinary about me, and my parents were supposedly normal people. But who is to say what 'normal' is?

My parents named me "Levi" - YES, like the jeans. I am fully aware that most people hear or see my name and instantly assume I am a boy. I'd hate to disappoint you, but I am very much a girl.

From the minute I entered the world - maybe even before that moment too- everyone had a 'plan' for not just me, but themselves too. Nobody could have predicted how much that plan could and would change. Less that 13 years later everything would change; forever. Not just for me, but for my older sister and younger brother too. I am very much the middle-child and suffer from 'middle-child syndrome.' My brother and I share the same father, my sister (who beat me to the world by a whole 8 years) has a different dad. Don't tell them this, but I love them more than anything. Even my little brother! I'll admit, I wasn't that happy about his arrival in the beginning, but right now at this very moment of typing this I wouldn't swap him for anyone or anything. Of course, I still bully him, but isn't that what little brother's are for?

My life was pretty average; my parents separated not long after my brother made his big arrival into the world and for a while my Mum didn't seem herself. She lost her way a little, but no matter what was going on in that mind of hers, myself and my siblings always came first. ALWAYS.

Life was a struggle for my Mum - she became a single parent, with two young children (my sister was already off creating a life for herself at this point) and Mum always did the best she could for us. Making sure we always had food to eat and all the love any kid could ever wish for (her hugs were the best!).

I excelled at school - I've got to admit, I loved the place! Although, since leaving I just wish I'd made a bit more effort and realised how good it actually was for me. As I've gotten older I've realised just how much of an impact it has had on my life - especially the teachers. My advice, if you are lucky enough to get good teachers; hold onto them! They are incredibly rare to find and you just never really know when you are going to need them. I definitely learned the hard way just how important they really are.

You see, just a few months before my 13th Birthday, my Mum died.
I knew she was poorly, but was never really told how badly ill she was. My step-dad (the awful guy my Mum had chosen to marry before she died) and other adults in my life just repeatedly told me that she was "going to be okay" and that she just had to go for "check-ups" everyday. I was convinced everything was going to be 'normal' soon. These words were utter LIES. Looking back, I know they were saying it to protect me, to "sugar-coat" the truth, but this young girl was about to enter a crazy world of hormones, and those lies hurt. All these lies just made it harder to truly cope when my Mum did finally pass onto another place to look down on me everyday (I truly believe this). 

Cancer. A disgusting word, an even more disgusting disease, for which the cure is unknown. This disgusting thing stole my Mum from me. Statistics show that cancer, as a whole, kills almost 20 thousand people every single day. On that particular day, My Mum became one of the 20 thousand. To society, she is just another number to add to statistics; to me, she was my Mum. My best friend. There isn't a single day which has passed in the last 6 years since she was so cruelly stolen from us that I've not missed her.

Living life having lost a loved one is difficult (UNDERSTATEMENT) but losing a parent is 10000 times worse than I could have possibly imagined. This is where my story really begins

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