7 Random things

My first meme!  Of course I am far too sophisticated to me excited by such a silly thing.  I don’t even know why I mentioned it. 😉

1. I travelled the world as a child.  I had my seventh birthday in Greece, my present was a toy camel that was made from real baby camel skin.  I loved it to distraction, but it was lost/stolen the day we left Greece.  Probably a good thing, because it would gross me out now.  As a consequence of that trip, I can eat anything, sleep anywhere, use a squat toilet, and drive a hard bargain.
2. My grandmother was an artist’s model.  Her father was Chinese, her mother was either Spanish or indigenous Australian – we don’t know.  Rita modelled for Norman Lindsay for years, until she married my grandfather, George.  Lindsay described Rita as his ideal woman, he had been painting her since before he met her.  Lindsay’s daughter described Rita in her book about her father in glowing terms.  She wrote that nanna “could make a kitchen chair look like a throne”.  I loved her more than I can say, and consider it a great tragedy that nanna never met Mark, and will never meet her great grandchild.
3. I wanted a rabbit since I was a small child.  I don’t know why, and I always resented my parents for not giving in to me. In retrospect, I now know that they did the right thing – I could never have looked after a rabbit properly. Even as an adult, I find it challenging. A rabbit is not a good pet for a child.
4. I can’t imagine loving a child more than I already love my husband, my bunnies, and my family. Apparently that’s the way it goes, but I just can’t see myself as being that selfless. One of the reasons that I never wanted to have children was that I saw my friends give up so much for their children, and it just never appealed to me. Too late now!
5. I’ve always enjoyed my own company. I loved living alone, and very rarely felt lonely. I don’t know if this has always been in me, or whether I learned to be by myself after being rejected socially as a kid. It took Christian youth camp to teach me how to make friends. I went expecting nothing, but found a new world, where nobody had expectations of me, and I was able to be the person I was too afraid to be at school. I became a born again christian at about 12 years old, but it didn’t stick. What did stick, was a love of the basic tenets of christianity, an open heart, a generous nature, and a belief in forgiveness and equality. But I believe these things are inside us, not bestowed by a higher being.
6. My big loves have always been bad boys. The more tortured and self obsessed, the more I loved them. Though it took me until the age of 33 to finally meet the man of my dreams, I honestly don’t think I could have appreciated Mark until I learned to value the right qualities in a man. If I had met Mark in my twenties, I would have been very mean to him, and then hated myself for it. Now I am just a little bit mean, and I try to make up for it.
7. Socially, I am very shy. Most people would never pick this in me now, because I have spent years forcing myself to talk to people, and refusing to bow to my fears. I read compulsively, and picked up conversational gambits from the heroes in my favourite books. Now, I can play the part of the social butterfly with ease, but underneath I am still terrified that one day I will be found out for the fraud that I am.

Now, I’m tagging Mark, Jussi, Andrew, Emma, Andrea, Bex, and Pamela.