I was born on March 20th, 1983. My parents were loving and attentive. My mother is a teacher, my father a banker.  We live in a mid sized california town.  First on a ranch, then in a subburb.  My sister was born on March 20, 1984. We are inseperable, like twins. We even dress the same, our own choice.  Our mother tries to teach us to share, but too often buys two sets of crayons or stickers.  We love to play pretend and are spoiled by our grandmother.

I am a bright child. I love to play, love to read, love to spend time with my younger sister. School is fun.  In kindergarden, a boy steals my lunch box and I slip on gravel and crack my head open while chasing him, requiring seven stitches.  I don't remember the pain, though I remember crying.

My mother decides we should move. Our town is becoming too large, to many people. We move to a small town. I begin first grade.  The new house is bigger, the town is smaller.  I remember running through the house with my cousins.  The hill is perfect for wild children, like we are.

I hate school though. I don't tell anyone and cry as I walk home from school. I am bored. My teacher gives me fourth grade reading work but doesn't say anything to my parents about how bored I am.  IT is simply too easy for me.  I make jokes about the time we pray in class.  Could this be real?  The praying in class?  I don't know.  I just remember being bored, and the teacher trying (not very hard) to cater to me.  I did not have many friends, but I don't remember being unhappy in this area.

Somehow, my parents find out what's going on. It's too late to do anything. My mother home schools me for the rest of the year.

School is better when I return the next year. I make friends, especially one girl. We read together at recess when the others are playing.  it isn't being anti social though, it's just what I like to do.  We are at the top of our class.  I get awards for honor roll.

I don't notice how things are at home. My father works in San Francisco, leaving the house at 5 am and returning by dinner. Sometimes we go for bike rides on weekends. My mom doesn't work and is home when get back from school. I rarely spend time with them as a family. We all read at the dinner table.

After fourth grade my best friend moves away.

In fifth grade I become close friends with two boys. Our time is spent trading cards, talking comics and chasing each other around the playground. They call me Nutmeg. I have a massive crush on one of them. I am a bossy tomboy who loves to pick scabs and make girls scream at the blood.

Sixth grade. My grandmother dies.

I enter seventh grade. A new school. Everything is different. My humanities teacher hates me. I don't know what she expects of me. My friends spend less and less time with me. I still have a crush on one of them. I join the track team and am tormented by eighth graders. I begin to spend time out behind the classrooms. I begin to write stories.

My grandpa dies.

Behind one classroom, there are shattered bottles. One day I cut myself with a piece of glass. It hurts, but not much. I have a new addiction. My door is always locked. My parents are fighting, I attend numerous parent teacher conferences with my humanities teacher. She says I'm not applying myself. I draw and read in class. I am removed from a class for kicking another girl in the shin. I drop out of track because it's too hard and I have only won one ribbon.  That summer my dad moves out. My other grandpa dies. My mother cries all the time. I have to be strong for her. My door stays closed.

In eighth grade, I make another close friend, a girl. She is a writer. She is smart and knew someone who cut herself. She calls me the Scully to her Mulder.  I write an essay in class saying I want to kill myself sometimes. I begin meeting with the school councilor once a week. This will last until the present. I am mercelessly teased by two boys in my humanities class where, thankfully, I have a new teacher and am doing well. It stops when I tell a teacher.

I cut myself with anything I can get my hands on. I steal an x-acto knife from my mother. It works better.

I graduate from junior high school. My friend moves away. I feel more alone then ever. I cut myself sometimes, not so reguarly, but I am often alone. My boy friends from elementary school hardly talk to me. My only remaining girl friend copies my homework in English, but rarely spends time with me outside of class. I finally get over my crush. There are others, but I don't think anyone will ever go out with me.  I begin seeing a profesional therapist. Around my fifteenth birthday I discover Wicca. It keeps my spirits up, but not enough. That summer I am happy but lonely. I tell a friend I want to kill myself. He talks me out of it. It is the fourth of July.

Tenth grade begins. I am sure everything will be better. It is. I have no crushes whatsoever and intend to keep it that way. I start hanging out with people more often. In PE, I spend time with two boys, one a longtime friend. I'm still depressed and I don't knw why.  I hear about the Rotary exchange program and decide to apply. I am the only one and am accepted. I am going to spend a year overseas, my junior year. It doesn't really sink in yet.

I have a crush on my new friend from PE. He invites me to a Christmas party, my first real party in a long time. My dad buys me a computer and we send each other e-mails. He sends me a message saying he has a crush on a seventh grader. He tries to guess who my crush is, already knowing it's him. I talk to him through e-mails and a phone call. Then he dissapears.

I have my first Rotary get together. It's intimidating, but I meet some nice people. It's a ski trip and I snow board for only the secont time. I love it. When I get back, I have an e-mail from my crush. It has been two weeks and he as been in a mental hospital. I am shocked and shaken. He's dropped out of school and we talk by e-mail for another two weeks. The we talk in a chat room one weekend and decide we have to meet the next day, a school holiday. In the chat room, I reveal that he is my crush. He does the same and asks me to go out with him. I have my first boyfriend.

We are very close. On our third date, he kisses me. We promise never to cut again. In two weeks he has broken the promise. In another week so have I.  I decide something must be done about my depression. I decide to change therpists and see a physchiatrist about anti-depressant medication. My new therapist is a big help to me. She gets me an appointment with a phychiatrist, who perscribes Prozac. For the first month nothing, then it seems to kick in. I find my mood greatly improved. I get along with people and my boyfriend and I have a close relationship, much steader then it had been before.

There are bad times. I have two major 'episodes' one leading to the police being called. We look into anti-anxiaty medication. I am moved to 40 mgs of Prozac a day and given 1 mg tablets of Resperdal if a panic attack set in.  So far, they have never been used.  I am going to Switzerland in August, 1999. My boyfriend and I worry about our time apart. I will be gone ten months. I start to learn German and talk with my host family over the internet. It is beginning to sink in.  But so slowly.

My boyfriend breaks up with me. The ultimite rejection. I should be crushed. I should cut until I have no blood left to bleed. I do not. I don't even want to. I realize a strength in myself I've never seen before. My relationship with my best friend is closer then ever. My relationship with my sister is better then ever. I begin to miss everyone and I havn't even left yet.

Things turn ugly between my ex-boyfriend and I. He wants to be friends, then he hates me. I survive through this. It is so hard. He says I am crazy, says I am worthless. A part of me wants to believe him but another part says no! That part wins.

The day is fast arriving. I suffer moments of depression, moment of anxiaty, but mostly I am impatient to go. Finally it is here. August 12th. My father wakes me up at a quarter to three in the morning. We drive to the airport. I wear my Rotary blazer. He shows me to my gate and says he is proud of me. His eyes are full of tears.  A new chapter in my life begins. There are a few inital setbacks, a few incidents of minor self injury, but nothing serious. I have realized that anything I do here could have dire circumstances. The possibility of being sent home looms in my mind. More then that though, is the newfound happiness I feel. I make friends, including one I can confide in about my past. It is the past. I am only sixteen, but I feel like an adult.

A set back in the spring.  Some cutting, minor. Looking back I don't even remember why.  Perhaps losing the cutting was much harder then gaining it.  I panic.  I will lose everything.  I will have to go home a discrace.  I am not worth friendship. I am wrong, and I almost lose the friends I have because of that attidute.  I realize how much power I have over my situation.  Both positive and negative.

What is Switzerland to me?  It is independence and responcibility.  It is being confidant for the first time and the fear of failure.  It is new friends,. new loves and new family.  It is travel and education and more fun then any other time of my life.  It is language and food and culture.  It is less TV and more classical music.  Strauss and Chopin.  Telephone calls and e-mails.  The world in a nutshell.  Taking the SATs in a foregn city.  Missing the train.  Catching the wrong train.  Growth.  Change.  Evolution.