The next door neighbour's two girls. One was a year older than me, one was a couple of years younger.
That was my first experience of putting on makeup (the Jokeresque oversized lipstick endeavours still make me smile thinking about it), wearing our parents' heels that were several sizes too big, putting on dresses that were also miles too big and had the sleeves hanging down to the ground, memorising the lyrics to cheesy 80's songs ('Total Eclipse Of The Heart' by Bonnie Tyler still has a soft spot in my soul because of that). To all intents and purposes I was one of them. And it felt carefree and natural. They didn't seem to either care or understand that I wasn't a girl physically. And interestingly, neither did anyone else. Evenings, weekends, and long school holidays spent doing each other's hair, painting nails, working out dance routines to the self-same cheesy 80's pop songs, holding makeshift tea parties under a sheet that their mum had draped over the washing line in the back garden to form a rudimentary tent-thing. From the age of five to the age of twelve, when they moved away, I felt like I fitted in somewhere, that I had people who understood me.
Good times.
After that, nothing and no one really came close. The harsh realities of a life both physically and mentally unwanted bore down with a vengeance.
