Secret Dirt and Bad Habits 1

I do not now how to start this one. This is one issue that I have always kept to myself.

I am a superficial idiot. Yep. Superficial in a sense that I fell in deep fascination with a guy so-out-of-my-league for about 10 years now.

As a child, I was pretty unromantic (in an innocent manner). I never believed in fairytales and princes and princesses. I mean, I just knew they could never be real.

I grew up in a very practical household where hugs are so rare I have become allergic to human touches. I never played with barbie dolls and I never owned a teddy bear. What I had where my strictly followed-up coloring books with all the spaces numbered accordingly. Number 1 for red, 2 for blue, 3 for green and so on and so forth.

My mother strictly watched over every phase of my education. She bought me tapes to help me speak well, sing well... my doting grandparents sent me to a ballet school hoping that I would grow up into a little ballerina who can twirl around for them, I even joined the school band where I played the xylophone and started to long for piano lessons which was never realized (alas).

And I discovered the beauty and wonder of reading. I read a German airlines mag, I read my mothers college books and I read everything I could get a hold of.

One of the magazines that my mother used to subscribe to was a Christian mag. I loved the comics portion. The drawings were so fascinating. I mean, they were just like the Japanese cartoons we were not supposed to watch.

Unexpectedly, that was where I found the spectre that haunted me for most of my life right now. The spectre that became an inspiration and eventually a bad habit to break.

I found a prince!

Damn, at 11, I honestly believed that princesses, pirnces and kingdoms never existed. Ghost probably, spectres maybe...but a prince. Hell no. Frogs exist. Not princes.

But there he was, smiling a shy toothy and endearing smile... a fifteen year old kid who was so fascinating... He was featured in the Youth for All Seasons portion and I thought...tsk, sayang. He's already dead.

I mean, I thought he was featured because he died heroically. ( I am a Jose Rizal fan and I believed that you should only be featured in mags if you did something really great and that you died doing it...hehehe).

I cut out the picture, his skecth and copied the article. Wow, a prince. A dead prince but a cute one, anyway.

Then came the shock. My dead prince was actually alive.

Hell. He was the living son of a princess who passed away in a car accident in Paris. And I thought, Huh? A princess also exists...err, used to exist?

I grew curious. I did not know that my world actually extends to a wider network of land and seas and systems. My world is not just limited inside the four walls of a boring classroom, with sseven awe-and-fear-inspiring teachers taking charge of everyday lessons.

I found out that Britain existed. That the monarchy is a real form of governement and that a globe is useful.(At least, twirling it aroung and in pointing out Britain everytime social studies lectures get stale and boring.)

I also found out that I am not the only person with a beating heart. That a bestfriend can also love (er, its really not love, honest) the same person.

Well, this bad habit haunted me everytime and until now, after 13 years, it is still haunting me.