Middle School Years

Life traveled on as it always does... but at the end of the seventh grade school years things ended rather badly. A particular girl in school started to pick on me. Unfortunatly, she was popular. So, when she picked on me, so did everyone else, including that young-girl crush, Jason, who delighted in showing off how well he could hurt someone else. But, in the end, it was alway Fran who kept it going. I figured I was saved by summer vacation but when I came back, it was waiting for me.

Eigth grade was hell. Everyday that it was a school day, it was a struggle just to get out of bed. I missed enough school that teachers threatened to fail me. They knew what was going on but did nothing, or, rather, could do nothing. There were times when I wished I'd never been born, many times... I remember crying alot and feeling hopeless and worthless. That depression, which was natural at that age but made worse by circumstance, would stay with me for a very long time.

Few friends stuck by me. Tracy and Jill were two of a handful that didn't let go. And for that, I'll always be grateful. Another set that was there for me? My mom and dad. I rarely told them what was going on because it became so common and I knew there was nothing they could do.

Oddly enough, a new joy came into my life. Star Wars. I watched it in the summer I turned 13 and was in love from that moment on. I lost my pain in a world of fantasy and thought. It inspired me to dream and one day, I simply started writing and didn't stop.

High School Years

High School brought some relief. I didn't have Fran or Jason in any class exept the dreaded P.E.. Fran was there and she wasted no time in trying to start up again. Fortunatly, the other girls didn't find her as cute as my old class mates did, so I heard nothing else out of her again. Unfortunatly, the damage had been done. I was a very solitary teenage who rarely spoke and kept to herself. It was safer that way.

I kept to writing and fantasizing, and, at the age of 14, I finished my first science-fiction novel, Star Child. Another followed, the sequel, then another and another... That's pretty much what I remember of high school. Being quiet, trudging through my work and writing. And thinking...

One side effect from the psycological torture of being bullied, other than the depression and personality change, was a new sense of being. I began thinking on a higher level, becoming interested in things the people I knew just didn't understand. What I was doing, which I didn't know at the time, was meditation, altering my persceptions with thought. It was a powerful tool that I've carried with me.

So, by this time, though I was still very angry with the bullying and the poeple who did it, the experiance gave me an insight into my own mind that I would not have gotten had I had an easy time of it.

My first niece was born at this time, as well, to my sister and her first husband.

Work Force Years

I graduated high school the summer I turned 18. I was so glad to be out that I didn't even go to my own graduation. I have no regrets about that. It meant nothing to me then and means little to me now.
My first job was at a sewing plant where my mother worked. I had a tough first week but I got into the swing of it pretty fast, enjoying my job. One of my co-workers, however, was quite the bully (teaching me that you can't run away because there's always someone out there to lord over you if they can). It wasn't pretty.
But he eventually got fired for his own reasons and I left for more money. THAT wasn't pretty either. I still had that pesky anxiety that I didn't understand and the other job was an abismal try. I got laid off (thank goodness) and returned to my former job which I happily stayed at until the end.
At this time, I had bought a used computer to type up my novels with dreams of making a living as an author. I did not date at any time as I grew up and I would not make any moves in that direction for quite some time.

Move along to the next 10 years of Nova.