Second chapter of Christopher Ticehurst's autobiography.

.S.O.N.A.L Chapter Two: Childhood

It took a long time to think of how to start this chapter and for myself to remind myself to do it in the first place. Childhood the chapter, I had to think what to talk about. I guess as you know this is about my own childhood. The question is really, was there a childhood or not. If you didn’t read the first Chapter it told about the last two years and how I got to where I am now.

This chapter is different for me, for the first time in my life and for good. None of my parents look after me, their time is over. I now live in Canberra, making a life of my own, with College and writing on the side. What this chapter tries to explain and me too is about my childhood.

It has taken me a long time to think of what I should call the first 17 years of my life. My Childhood ended when I was 10 to 12, when I was a carer for my mother. Even when I was young, I only did little things that othert kids did. I played with little matchbox cars, played my own version of tennis and found a passion for my own lego world. But I was strange in a number of ways. I wrote as much as older kids did, maybe evern teenagers. Since I was six years old I started writing when I moved to Nambour in Queensland Australia. I was carrying a pen and book in my hand. I still do it today, expect it’s for College work, or for short stoires or songs etc.

There was a problem when I was young, I had a speech problem where I couldn’t to young kids or to people. I only started to talk when I was six, when I took up writing. I got upset at times because other kids could speak, I got upset because they were normal and I wasn’t. I felt like I was still a little baby, unable to speak. But soon enought I learnt to talk. But the speech problem still remians with me. The speech teachers made me into a chair with three chair, a half finished job.

I did have one good friend, who I knew for nearly ten years. We got on because we were like each other, quiet and kept to ourselves. We played cars and trucks, a bit of tennis and toy figures. Those were the days, when things were simple and life was easy. But even when I looked after my mother, I felt childhood was disappearing from me. I started to see through the eyes of a adult, not a child. I wanted to play games but I couldn’t, I just couldn’t.

The time came when I was in a foster home, the people there were very nice. There were other kids at the home which I played with. In a one view I was happy, but in a other I couldn’t undertsnad what kids did and why they did things. I thought it was young and inmature. They were good kids but I just keep to myself most of the time.

High School came around for me and I was in Grade 8, I had met a good friend who knew me from primary school. High School was a werid wrold for me. Kids were older and did differnet things to what I did. I did have a pretty noisy class which just keep mucking up for our teachers. There were the normal troublemakers and the silly billies.All these kids around made me strange, I didn’t know how to act in front of them. They seemed to me that they need to dress and look the same way to fit in. I didn’t believe in it myself. I didn’t feel the need to do so.

After my mother passed away, I moved to Caboolture and thing was even werider for me. My new school was full of older kids and I felt I was losing my interactions with them. They spoke a langaue to me, they were from a other world to me. I was also living in the saem world with my mother. My grandmother was aged and she was having troubles with many things. The reason why was she was just old. She had a long and wonderful to what I had heard of. Sadly for the two of us, we never hit it off, she was too sick to know something who I was.

Through many ordeals and lies the cost of my ill fated relationship with my father was at a end. He had something thing, but not a last chance to know his only son. I hope isn’t the last chance he will get.My mother thought if she went then I could live a life with him. Sadly things didn’t turn out.

Now I live with my Uncle in Canberra and to my surpirse I had figured out something that took me my teenagers years to work out. I was not one of the teenagers. Throught my times of looking after people, sorting out my life and moving around. I had fully grown apart from teenagers. I feel I’m a alien to them all. I don’t what they are, or what the do.

Of course you would say how stupid is that. I am teenager myself, how can I not know my own kind. I have gone through adolescents physcial wise, but in the mental stage I have skipped it. I didn’t have the time to wonder what I should be wearing and what groups I should in. What parties to go to and what pick up lines to practise. I feel I’m a teenager with a mind of a adult.
I don’t see the point going to the movies every week. Driving cars to me is too much money. Speeding gets you killed and I don’t believe you find true love at sixteen. Am I the only teenager who doesn’t think like this. I think I am the only one at times.

Even when I try to talk to other teenagers, they response in a differnet way to me. That’s why I tend not to make new friends if it looks too hard or scary to try. I tend to find it easlier to talk to females than males, because I had lived with women most of my life and had a little male influence in my life.

I do admire teenagers in how they keep a social life happening. All becuase I don’t know how to create one myself. My days are made up of going to the shopping centre, checking on the latest music and check on my e-mail. When I get depressed, McDonalds seems to be the soultion for some reason. I start eating when I get down, which is good in a way, I don’t eat alot. Of course you shouldn't get yopurself depressed just to make yourself eat more. I do go to the movies but only once every four to six months. I am very fussy on the films I watch.

All through my life, music has been a key in getting me going. It seems to make me feel good. I love all sorts of music. Every sort of music is not missed in my collection. Maybe a lack of a type but not missed. I use theme songs for each chapter to tell you in a song how I feel on the matter.

There are hundreds of kids who have had their childhoods shirked, or taken. Both famous and infamous have had that problem. Some have handled it well and some have had tough times with it. I’m just part of the crew. Some childhoods are much worse than my own. Child abuse and sexual abuse etc happens with them. All so sad for them. I’m going to use my adulthood to enjoy what I want to do. Life will be better because I will have control of it for the first time.

Well I guess I have bored you with enought of myself. The next chapter will be better. Meaning it will happy. It will tell of the good times and how I fought to get to where I am now...







P.E.R.S.O.N.A.L: The Album presents...

Childhood

Childhood

Have you seen my childhood?
I’m searching for this world that I come from
‘Cause I’ve been looking around
In the lost and found of my heart...
No one understands me
They view it as such strange eccentricites...
‘Cause I keep kidding around
Like a child, but pardon me...

People say I’m not okay
‘Cause I love such elementary things...
It’s been my fate to compensate, for the Childhood
I’ve never known

Have you seen my childhood?
I’m searching for that wonder in my youth
Liek pirates and aventurous dreams,
Of conquest and kings on the throne...

Before you judge me, try hard to love me
Look within your heart then ask,
Have you seen my childhood?

People say I’m strange that way
‘Cause I love such elementary things...
It’s been my fate to compensate, for the Childhood
I’ve never known

Have you seen my childhood?
I’m searching for that wonder in my youth
Like fantastical stories to share
The dreams I would dare, watch me fly...

Before you judge me, try hard to love me
The painful youth I’ve had
Have you seen my childhood...
P.E.R.S.O.N.A.L : CHILDHOOD SHORT FILM

The car quickly zooms out of the driveway and and zips down the road like mad. The man looks at a special timer which says 17:364:36.
“Fourteen minutes to go. I’m late!” he cried.
The car drives towards a lake where a old hall is. The sign flickens ‘Childhood’ on and off as the car comes to a sudden halt. The man jumps and runs into the old hall to see an old cleaner.
“I’ve made it! Finally I have time to myself. Now I want the birthday party I’ve always wanted. I want go to the movies..”
The cleaner stops cleaning and points at the time, it showed 18:000:02. The young man’s face dropped and sat on a small kid’s chair.
“Great, my childhood is offically over,” frowned the man.
“You’re Chris aren’t you? I know all the school and college kid’s. I clean their bloody classrooms,” said the cleaner.
“Yeah. I thought I could get some time in my childhood where I could do something...”
“Childish?” answered the cleaner.
“Yeah,” answered Chris.
“There have been many kids who have lost some of their childhood or the whole lot of it. It can be home problems, fame, war, living in poorer countries. Don’t think you’re the only one. There are many like you,” spoke the cleaner.
“I know, in some ways I have been lucky with people I have met in my childhood. It’s just I’ve been a adult during that time. Can I get a refund or do my childhood now,” asked Chris.
The cleaner gave a laugh and leaned down next to him thinking.
“No, once it’s gone, it’s gone Chris. All you have to do, is to make good with the time you have left. That’s my advice in life. You are in charge of your own destiny,” he said.

“Well. I guess you’re right. But some people think I’m strange or weird to them,” worried Chris.
“Strange. Everone is strange. What would the world be like, if everyone was the same?” asked the cleaner.
“Boring?” suggested Chris.
“Yeah, of course. You’re not strange because you do different things to the people you’re age. Everyone is different in this world. Everyone is weird. That’s what it is,” smiled the cleaner.
“Well thanks for everything. I’m going to make my life the best I can,” Chris said.
“That’s the shot. Life will be easy if you work hard in life. I’m a cleaner, I should know,’ answered the cleaner.
“Goodbye then,” Chris smiled and walked out of the old hall.
“Good luck and good luck to all,” said the cleaner picking up his broom again.

Chris walked passed his car and satr down by the lake, of life in the past and the future.
“All you have to do, is to make good with the time you have left. You are in charge of your own destiny,” he said to himself.
He looked up at the stars and over the lake to the sea.
“I still feel I have missed something but, as my favourrite artist says, a new day has come,” he grinned to himself.
The stars shined it’s brighest and in the car, the radio suddened turned on somehow with this.....

Have you seen my childhood?
I’m searching for this world that I come from
‘Cause I’ve been looking around
In the lost and found of my heart...
No one understands me
They view it as such strange eccentricites...
‘Cause I keep kidding around
Like a child, but pardon me...

People say I’m not okay
‘Cause I love such elementary things...
It’s been my fate to compensate, for the Childhood
I’ve never known

Have you seen my childhood?
I’m searching for that wonder in my youth
Liek pirates and aventurous dreams,
Of conquest and kings on the throne...

Before you judge me, try hard to love me
Look within your heart then ask,
Have you seen my childhood?

People say I’m strange that way
‘Cause I love such elementary things...
It’s been my fate to compensate, for the Childhood
I’ve never known

Have you seen my childhood?
I’m searching for that wonder in my youth
Like fantastical stories to share
The dreams I would dare, watch me fly...

Before you judge me, try hard to love me
The painful youth I’ve had
Have you seen my childhood...

The radio turns off and the moon shines on. Midnight had come and the young man had fall asleep at the lake in peace.