My childhood smelt amazing, like cinnamon and cloves. I remember purple velvet and butterfly kisses.
Everything was new and fascinating.
There was my childhood dog, Ollie, a cross between bits of this and bits of that; I remember how dad cried when he died, and I realised he was human.
I remember the fairies in my sunflower garden, and the little notes they used to leave me. I found mum writing one once and I was shattered.
I remember our multiplying rabbits, that we would chase through mountains of sand and pine bark in our neighbour's back yard and later we would eat their raspberries. It was wonderful.
I remember the little baby duckling waddling, confused around a park, and I picked it up and then went swimming in the water to give it back to the big ducks. Or the time a seagull had a broken wing; it hung at a skewed angle and bled into the white sand. Mum heavily pregnant hobbled after it, going deeper and deeper into the water; her dress hiked up around her legs. A man walked past and she called out for help, he told us to 'let it die, it was only a seagull.'
I remember my best friend Jacqueline, when I was seven; we ran screaming through paddocks getting chased by the old black stallion horse. We found a box of apple stickers in one of the old farm sheds. It was like a movie scene, the light filtering through cracks in the rusting tin roof putting the dust particles on display, and we had made this amazing discovery of apple stickers, but we were too scared to take them.
I remember grandma's body dead, only a shell, but still warm and the yellow of her skin, we were only a few minutes late, just a few minutes.
I remember when I got really sick and started hallucinating and tried to point out the ghosts on the walls, but dad said there was nothing there. They were though, floating over my walls looking at me with black pitless eyes.
I remember how our huge pig Berral was one day just not there anymore; I never found it suspicious that the next day our freezer was full of pork.
I remember when I was little I could never sleep and would wake up crying, until dad rocked me back to sleep.
Or when my sister tried to run away but only ever got as far as the front gate.
I never tried to run away, I never wanted to.

I think I was twelve, or thirteen, when I realised 'mature' was just another word for shy.
I somehow managed to drag myself out from where I was hiding in my head.
Everything seemed more real; people were just like me and life was just life, it was a bit weird and confronting, looking at the worl realistically.

I think I miss my childhood, of not having responsibilities, of having poundless energy and  an over the top imagination, but things seem to get better as I get older. I feel like I'm growing to the age I'm meant to be, and I don't think i'll be one of those people who cry at their thirtieth birthday. I suppose when I look back I'm not even sure if there was a stallion in my friends' paddock or if the sand was red with seagulls' blood.

Everything I'm doing now, that I'm living, are memories and I want to make the most of it.