Some kind of fairytale: Part I

Once upon a time, there was a little girl called Mandy. She lived in the marvellous land of Oz with her mother, her father, her brother, and her cats. She was close to her father’s family, who had all lived in her hometown since her grandparents arrived on the ship from England with Mandy’s 3 year old father. She visited her mother’s family in a faraway land called U.S.A every 3 to 6 years. The people in that land spoke differently, like her mother. Young Mandy’s voice changed often, day by day sounding like she was from a different land – her mother’s, her father’s, or her own. She would proudly tell anyone who would listen that she was an American. Mandy’s school teachers would always hand back her schoolwork with circles around words such as “color” and “organized” and she would be told that the correct spelling was “colour” and “organised”. This made Mandy determined not to correct her spelling, defiantly certain that different did not mean incorrect. One day, while on holiday with her family, Mandy got into an argument with her father when she called their boat Dynasty and he corrected her, insisting it was pronounced DINasty. Mandy used to defend her mother when she was playfully teased for the way she spoke. When her mother one day decided to stop saying “ant” and start saying “aunt” because it just made everything easier, it made Mandy sad. She continues up until this day to argue with her father over pronunciation of “Dymocks’, a book store.

You see, Mandy thought her mother’s faraway homeland was so much more exciting than Oz. She planned to live there one day and resented the fact that she hadn’t been raised there. Mandy wanted to do the wonderful things that the kids in books and on television did in her mother’s land. She wanted to go to the mystical place called Elementary School and be served food in a cafeteria on a tray with a carton of milk. Mandy dreamed of going to summer camp and graduating not only from Elementary School but also from Junior High, where there would be a hallway lined with lockers, students who got to wear their own clothes, and another cafeteria filled with tables to sit at with her friends and her carton of milk. She wanted to be a high school cheerleader, or at least attend pep rallies in between classes called ‘Algebra’ or ‘Calculus’. She wanted a High School graduation with caps and gowns. Mandy dreamed of what it would be like to go away to college and live in a dorm room with a roommate. Oh yes, in Mandy’s eyes life would have been so much more exciting in that faraway land. But Mandy lived in Oz, so she wore a school uniform, sat through “Maths”, had “Christmas Holidays” instead of “Summer Vacation”, and attended “University” in her hometown. Yet she still wrote “color” and “center” and smiled when people she met asked her where she was from and told her that they couldn’t place her accent.

So after graduating, Mandy set about making her dreams come true.. albeit a little later than she had wished for. Her mother’s homeland had so many facets that it was difficult for Mandy to decide where she wanted to live out her dream. But, while sorting through job offers from all over the country, Mandy recalled a conversation she’d had with her brother when they were young.
“I’m a New York City boy,” he’d said, “and you’re an L.A girl”.
He was right, and Mandy farewelled her family and friends, kissed her cats goodbye and cried as she left the land of Oz and travelled to sunny California. There she spent a year taking care of a 3 year old Princess. That year was one of the most challenging years of Mandy’s life. She rode as many emotional rollercoasters as she did physical ones. And that was many, considering how fond she was of Six Flags. She made a few friends, lost a few friends, but in the end the year turned out to be all about growing up and learning how to be a better person. For all the good times and the bad, life with her employers changed her. And for all the good times, Princess changed her, forever for the better...

Part II to follow shortly.