The introduction to my autobiography...

I hate to say it but that fringe has only recently gone. I should've ditched it sooner

Now that I think about it, it’s actually really difficult to introduce my autobiography. I mean, how am I supposed to start - “Thanks for wanting to read about my life, but bear in mind it’s not very interesting”? I thought about starting it like one of those soppy videos, ‘a message to my 16 year old self’ and proceed from there, but bearing in mind I am only just 17, my advice would be less along the lines of ‘follow your heart’ and more along the lines of ‘don’t forget to take your toothbrush on holiday when you go to Turkey’. So here goes – I was born on a battlefield on the South of the Serbian border, whilst the enemy was shooting from both sides and my father was recovering from a nasty blow to the head; my birth was truly a miracle. Nah, just kidding. To be honest, my birth was pretty normal I think. When my mum went into labour with my older sister, Eleanor, my dad was late to the hospital because he had just scored 100 runs in an important cricket game. I don’t have an interesting story like that. I think that was the closest that Eleanor and I had ever been to succeeding in sport, much to our father’s dismay. The rise and fall of my football career came when, in year 5, I tried to impress a boy on the playground by kicking a runaway ball back to him, but it ended up plummeting straight for a wall and bouncing right back to me. Anyway, all my mum has really ever told me about when I was born was that the midwife on call was ‘fat, sweaty and grumpy’ and my timing meant that mum missed ‘Coronation Street’. It doesn’t get much more interesting; the majority of my childhood was spent sitting, alone, in our spare bedroom, waiting for somebody to come and buy a stamp from my makeshift post office. Nobody ever did. In fact, the biggest profit I made from it was when we sold it for £2 at a car boot sale last year. 

School homework - 'Write an introduction to a novel'

“It’s gonna be okay”. But it’s not going to be okay is it? People always say that, but how do they even know?

My friend Tara always says it, and then chuckles as I snarl, “you don’t know it will be okay”.  “God Georgia, you’re so pessimistic for a 15 year old! Lighten up a little,” she says it with a grin, but I know that when she uses my full name instead of ‘Gee’, she’s being serious. I understand where she’s coming from but it’s so difficult to lighten up when everything in my life is so dark. Nothing’s going to be okay for me; even Tara, my best friend, doesn’t understand this.

I don’t try to be miserable, misery just has a way of finding its way to me and making sure that I know nothing is ever alright. It snakes its way through even my happiest memories, tinting them with the doubt that relentlessly whispers to me ‘why should you have this happy memory?’ So when Tara naively tries to cheer me up, it is thrown back in her face as I remember why nothing will ever be okay again.

My thoughts are constantly flickering, like the sound on an old CD which jumps and stalls, but unlike track 6 on Take That’s first album, or the last track on ‘Now That’s What I Call Music! 24’, my thoughts always go back to the same place. I used to be a bright and happy child. Normal, I guess, but everything changed when I was 7…


Where do you think this story is going? Write the next part in the comments for me!