Older, and wiser, and with dreams bigger than ever.

My first great act as a teenager was to re-do my bedroom entirely. It hadn’t changed a smidgen since my own Mom had been a kid. The pink was adorable, and I had loved it as a kid, but now it was time for my style to take over. We exposed the bare stone, got hold of a much bigger bookcase, upgraded my bed and my desk, and to top it off, bought me a brand new computer. 

One of the many perks of having the world’s most renown painter as your grandmother is that the funds to customize your bedroom for your Sweet 16 are practically unlimited. And I was Grandma’s darling princess.

My relationship with Grandma only got better as we both grew older. She approved of my new style, which didn’t surprise me. If my head was in electronic circuits and programming languages, my clothes sported the unmistakable touch of a boho, laid-back upbringing. They still do.

Just like Grandma before me, I also chose sports as one of my hobbies, though never to the extremes she had reached. She told me that when she was my age, she was much curvier, more so even than Mom. One day, a new gymnasium had opened in Oasis Springs, and she had found a passion in sports, setting the all-time record on their climbing wall. Then as old age won her body over, she took to yoga.

I just went jogging fairly regularly.

And I wrote, too. Not novels like Great-Grandma Ariana, or newspaper articles like a good number of my ancestors, but in my diary. There, I confided all my hopes, dreams and ambitions. I drew diagrams, schematics, and I wrote about the young boys that spun my head around…

My new and improved room, where I remember eating many, many fruit yoghurts for some reason.

Jogging became a part of my daily routine. It helped me clear my head, and as trapped as leaving enclosed by water could make me feel, the Brindleton Bay Wharf indeniably had some enjoyable sights.

Also helping me clear my head, my dear diary. I liked to write on the poolside patio.

Or I would write in our hall, with the weak, flickering light of our old lamp.

Even though the hall often meant little to no privacy.