- To be rewritten someday -

On the 8th of September, 1981, I am born in Ghent, Belgium - a Virgo forever.

Unexpectedly, three years later, my dad turns my toddler life upside-down by kidnapping me to his fatherland Scotland (a Glasgow suburb) for the three folowing years of my - by then familiar - life. He kind of brainwashes me into thinking I have no mum, which is really silly. My mum and her new boyfriend, Johan, came looking for me and found me living with my dad in Glasgow.

At the age of 6, in November 1987, I return to Belgium to live with my mum in Aalter, where she lives together with Johan. I admit to my mum that, until then, I didn’t know I had a mummy I skip the last toddler class and I immediately go to the Elementary School. It’s my first year and after three months I speak Dutch fluently.

A year later, in 1988, my teacher notices that I fall far more often than the other kids. My mum and me are dragged from doctor to neurologist to genetic specialist and after a lot of research they finally diagnose me, through elimanition only, with a rare genetic disease called Friedreich’s ataxia. My dad claims it is a trauma of the divorce with my mum, but it’s genetic anyway. For many many years he does not really accept it though.

In the Elementary  School, year 4,  circa 1991, my dad becomes romantically involved with a French lady, who gives birth to my half-sister Fauve Alice Donnelly. When they break up a few years later, my dad travels from country to country: The Netherlands, France, Germany, Austria, Italy… and in 2003 he ends up in London, England.

The last time I see my dad in my youth, is in the beginning of 1995. A month later, on April the 18th, my eldest half-brother, Roebi Jan Sebastian, is born with Johan and my mum as parents. In the end of that year, I’ll be confined to a wheelchair, in which my dad will never see me.

Next year, in 1996, I go on a Boarding School for my three last years of High School. I finally get my first kiss of my fist real boyfriend (better late than never, as they say), which is followed by a year long relationship (unfortunately it became sexual… too soon for my age I guess). On 29 December, Roebi gets another brother  and I get another half-brother, Ilya Sam Sebastian.

On New Years’ I get my own connection to the Internet. A few months later, in 1997, I manage to keep another relationship going for five months with my second boyfriend. In June, I have surgery on my back, two iron rods are put next to my spine to hold it up straight, because I have a scoliosis. In the Christmas holidays of that year I go on a trip to London with my soul mate from The Netherlands, who I only know three months through chat, but he’ll be a friend for life.

During that senior year, I entered a writing competition by entering an essay about the live of Anne Frank. And I won.

In May 1999 my feet need an aesthetic surgery. I am inaugurated as a Wiccan in Durbuy, Belgium. It’s on a TV-show. This is my senior year in High School.

In May 1995 my first artical is published in a National magazine ‘hart voor dieren’. It is a kind of travel story because I bought a cat in Turkey, during the Summer holidays

I stay in a students’ room for three years (1999-2002) and after being together for six months me and my third boyfriend break up, but we maintain an emotional relationship for the rest of our life. I occasionally start cutting myself in my arm when I’m bored or in pain. The first year I study computer science, but I don’t like the subject so I start a three months relationship with a five years older guy - my fourth boyfriend - who is in the senior year of computer science. I start acting out and I paint my hair green-blue a couple of times. I then find myself in an emotional relationship bound with my neighbor, who studies psychology as well, for more than a year. In June I become a Millenium Modal and their photographer makes me digitaI portofolio. I begin as a free student in the University of Ghent in the faculty of psychology and I earn a few certificates. At that time I have a huge crush on my professor, and he knows it. And I’ve been weblogging my journal ever since.

The following two years, 2001 and 2002, I study psychology full time. I have a my first hug-girlfriend for a few months. Together with her, I let my belly button be pierced. I start writing through my days, in English. At that time I get obsessed by suicide, I might have tried this a couple of times. Due to migraine however, which I suffer from since 1994 (this may be from a youth trauma, more likely than my Friedreich’s ataxia), I see no other option than to quit my study. Instead of my final exams, I start messing with my fifth boyfriend from upstairs, who’s in his senior year of civil engineering, we keep dating for three months. In the summer I get a little tattoo on my right shoulder (a cat paw).

In the end of 2002 I move back home, in Aalter, through distance learning I receive two diplomas in counseling.

On February 7th of 2003, Roebi and Ilya get another brother and I get another half-brother, Ira San Sebastian. Somewhat later I get into a mess by having a ten months relationship with a kid, my sixth boyfriend. I break one of the two rods attached to my spine, but I don’t want to have a surgery on my back, nevertheless it hurts a lot. His conservative parents then try to sue me because they want to legally forbid me to own a website because I have a weblog which I use as an interactive journal. I stress out about this ridiculous mess, I cut myself a lot and I overmedicate myself up to three times, but few people know this.

I move to a rather large apartment in Ghent in January 2004, and I take my black castrated cat, Mica, with me. In February I go to the gyneocologist. In May then I commit to two columnist jobs, for a Belgian and a Dutch newsletter, and I start writing for several international e-zines. My seventh boyfriend, lives in Ghent but it’s a short relationship, and I don’t really love him. Begin of July an important national newspaper offers me to write in a daily rubric.

[Unfinished story, live updated]

…and still alive and kicking!