Don't kill a boy on the first date.

So far, a pretty gloomy representation of my life has been portrayed by these here blogs. And I hope to alter that somehow, for the better or worse I don't know, by this entry. And so, I come to Buffy. A little piece of joy in my life that I constantly look back to. See, I used to watch it when it first came out, I was pretty young and a bit terrified, but my two big sisters loved it, so I watched it to be with them, and talk to them, and not feel totally alone. And for a few years, Buffy taught me some pretty important things about growing up - like not to kill boys on first dates (unless they are vampires), or not to fall in love with vampires (unless it's Angel with his soul) etc etc. Vital things 10year old's should know. And then my sisters paid less attention to Buffy, and for a few years she wasn't a constant fixture in my life. But then the bizarre stuff started happening when Emma came to live with us. I was 13, she was 22. I was just hitting puberty, and she was a lesbian but the parents couldn't know. I was young and impressionable, and she was probably drunk 80% of the time, including being at work. But despite how dangerous this all sounds, she really helped me grow up. She made me recognise the good deed my parents did by employing me. She helped me come to terms with being the youngest and the one everyone ignored. She even used to make me do her crazy-ass fitness routine with her, which was pretty brutal as she needed to re-stretch her legs for being a trapeze artist, and she'd do my legs too. Kinda wish I'd kept going with that... But anyway. As much as my family is completely fucked up, because she was more insane than any of us, she sort of brought order into the house. And since Helen was already at Uni, James was home only at weekends and charlie went off on her gap year, at 16 I was the only one there during the week, and Emma's presence in the winter months kept me grounded. Literally, grounded, she encouraged a lot of the drinking and hooligan-things we did. But then she left. The circus finally put money in her pocket, and Dad didn't really want her in the house anymore. So she left, and the garage was empty, and summer came around and James' squadron got moved so he didn't come home all the time. And it was just me left. And those last two years of school broke me. I didn't want to be at home, with two parents wanting to rant and rave all day long because they work themselves and each other, and their staff including me into the ground. I was torn between helping the business and running away. And in a way, I still am today - if they retire, I don't know what will happen to their marriage, so being at home will become yet more painful. And I love our house, I love our family and I love seeing my friends. I love Norfolk, because despite the things that get said about it, I come from one of the most beautiful places in England, beaten down by Edinburgh, Cornwall and Devon's coast, Hampshire (yay) and maybe a handful of pretty cities and landmarks. But considering how freaking huge Norfolk is (second biggest county, I do believe), most of it is stunning. Like, Narnia could be filmed there, if we had a lion. I know this blog makes very little sense, but what I'm trying to say is, sometimes home doesn't mean home anymore. I spent the last two years swinging between Southampton and Norwich too much, because I was working and seeing people and studying and living in two places etc etc. But my home, the place I live and the place I will sorely miss next year is Southampton. My life, however, and everything that made me who I am, is in Norfolk. So no matter how distant I am from my siblings, and no matter how fucked up my parents are, I will always return to my tiny little bedroom that is never the right temperature, because otherwise I'll forget who I am. Hey, maybe that's why I'm like a furnace.