here lies my life

PREFACE

For a long time, I have had this idea of archiving as many of my memories as possible. I even thought about making a gigantic iceberg-meme about it. But rather than bothering myself with 100 tiers or what would look like a destructured mess of anecdotes, I thought laying everything my memory holds in some kind of chronological order might fit the bill quite more. I've always had a pretty decent memory as you will see, just note that most dates are completely theoretical, they might be completely false and are just based on a-priori of what i can remember surrounding said event. I will try my best to let out every single detail about my life, every single significant or non-significant experience, to describe every media surrounding myself as well, from video recording to photos. I will also go on and speculate about how certain specific events impacted me and shaped my current vision of the world and who I became today. This is the story of how I came to be. This is the story of my entire life.

PART.1 (BIRTH AND EXTREME PAST)

According to my calculations I was conceived somewhere between the 15th and 21st of April 2001. It's very theoretical but I find it quite funny that I was probably conceived the same day Jesus was resurrected? My mom also remembers seeing 9/11 while pregnant, but that doesn’t concern me much as far as i know. Regardless, after 39 weeks spent in my mom’s belly, past midnight, on the very early hours of the 14th of January 2002, I started kicking my mom’s belly quite harder than usual, being shaken by the events my mother called an ambulance to drive her to the St Anne’s maternity clinic in Strasbourg. At that time the temperature was (according to weather reports) between -7,0°C to -11,7°C (19.4 - 10.94f) and the snow was 46,8 cm (18.4inci), this horrible weather turned a simple 30 min trip to a 3h30 one, I always joked about this, telling i was a nuisance without even being born yet. Once they arrived at around 5h in the morning, the hospital told my father he could go back home and will be called if i were to be born. Upon hearing that my father went home, lit a joint, smoked it, then went back to bed. Less than 3 hours later at approximately 8h52 in the morning i was born via C-section, much like my sister, born the exact same way 1592 days prior, (albeit prematurely). Upon hearing the hospital call, my father, who was still rather high and barely slept that night, jumped back on his blue and yellow 1989 Yamaha XTZ750 Super Tenere (which we still own to this day and still runs) and rushed to the hospital.

And there I was, trapped on Earth, 2.7kg and 47cm. Then on out I obviously can’t say much besides what’s written in my medical record, well the most I could decipher from the dreadful doctor’s handwriting. By 4 months i grew to 61 cm and weighed 6.2kg, my psychomotor development was completely fine. On the 9th of September I got a (seemingly bad) case of nasopharyngitis. It’s not the end of the world and I turned out fine, I mean i’m still here. By 9 months i weighed 7.95kg and measured 72cm, it’s interesting that by that time they still didn’t picked up on my bad vision, it would take up to 24 months to see it. Regardless, my oldest memory traces back to when I was apparently 8 months old, it was during my baptism. Now I obviously don’t remember it all, but I do remember the ceiling of the church (which was the one in my grandparent’s village) and the priest putting stuff on my forehead, I assume holy water. What I don’t remember is my teeth growing, so apparently i cried during almost all of the procedure. One other contender for the oldest memory was from a night I had woken up back when I was still sleeping in a crib in my parent’s bedroom. All I remember is the green light of my mom’s digital clock which I obviously couldn’t read and my terribly dry throat. I would have been able to wake my parents up but seemingly decided not to, perhaps due to my dry throat, I then promptly fell back asleep.

My early (that of pre-school) days were seemingly uneventful, I would spend most of my time playing with my plushies and legos at my grandparent’s house (i tried looking for the sets but they’re all so old i can’t find any info, they were all anywhere between 1975 to 1982. It was a white house with a red roof and a thick grey baseplate, alongside a small tractor). My grandparents were very important in my life, from early kindergarten to beyond what you’d call as 10th grade but that will be expanded upon more in the future. The earliest video footage of me seems to be the 26th of July 2003 of me and my sister playing in the bathroom out of all places, captured by my father on his Sony ccd-tr511e, we still have a total of 4 tapes and i will talk about the events unfolding inside them, as mundane as they can be. Sadly I never got the audio to work, which saddens me quite a lot as this early 2003 recording seems to be mostly me and my sister talking to our dad. The next video is from 2nd of August 2003 of me playing in the pool with my mother. I actually do remember this day, though I wasn’t aware I was only 1 and a half. The reason i remember it is due to the heat being so strong i basically stipped naked when exiting the pool, thankfully our “front yard” is shaded between a giant wall, the house and big wooden gates

Bit of a tangent but as a kid i was really pretty, i had beautiful curly blonde hair and my eyes were somehow blue, apparently it’s a common thing, my uncle was exactly the same. The next footage is from the 21st of August, it’s only my sister and me playing in the living room, nothing remarkable but what’s interesting to note is the apparition of a computer, I was totally unaware we already had a computer prior to say 2004-2005? I will talk about computers when time is due but as for now it isn’t super relevant. Next footage is from the 26th of August again,06:06 PM. It's me and my sister eating, she’s pointing at me to look at the camera, I’m not quite sure what we’re even eating. Next footage is from the 12th of October 2003 at 07:06 PM, it’s me playing with my sister’s big barbie “Van Car Out Picnic Party” from 1999. I remember that car quite vividly, I always found the weird turquoise blue color ugly. Again, a bit of a tangent, but my house looked so much better when I was young, I will go more into detail about how my house’s interior got ruined later but wow, beautiful wood walls, such a cozy place. The couch we’re playing on, my father still has it, it’s a purple buffalo (i think?) leather, he got it for ass cheap back then, i don’t remember the backstory but it’s probably worth a shitload of money nowadays.

Next footage is from the 26th of November 2003, me and my sister playing in the living room, again the computer in the background is hard not to mention, footage moves to film me running around the house, another interesting to mention from the background is a bigass CRT monitor TV, that TV help up until i think early 2017? It sorta moved all around the place, apparently flat screened LED TVs became popular starting 2005 so i’m assuming it was replaced around that time, tho, i have no memory of when our flat screen TV got installed in our living room. Regardless, in the footage i’m then seen putting a small Laa-Laa plushie (the yellow Teletubby) inside a fucking cooking pot, nothing much happens then after. The next footage is from 13th of December 2003 at 11:37AM, me playing in the living room again, I’m gonna be honest, it might sounds stupid, but I’m half mad the videos focuses only on me and doesn’t show the house a bit more, I mourn the old look my house had. Regardless, the footage then shows me sitting in front of the chimney, while my sister is watching the TV.

The next footage is from you guessed it Christmas, it’s my father showing the christmas tree in the dark then me and my sister opening out presents, my sister got a Xoomy mandala thingy and a pair of shoes, I got a bunch of construction working toys, oddly enough i can only remember about the crane, to be fair that crane was basically as big as me at the time. I got other stuff but couldn’t see nor remember what it was. Keep in mind I wasn't even 2 years old by that time. Next footage is the first from 2004, on the 2nd. Still me playing with my teletubby in the living room, also i’m playing with a funnel, what’s up with me playing with random cooking utensils? Anyway, there’s one last footage which is just a still from a wall in the living room that lasts a few seconds, not sure why this is here but it’s the last in the first tape. I got my first glasses around that age, somewhere in early 2004. I always hated them, especially from the youngest years, they were big round blocks of plastic and made me look stupid, but anyway.

The following tape doesn’t seem to always have dates on, but they’re all seemingly from 2004. 17th of February, i made a bigass lego tower, 1st of March 2003, me eating spaghetti, i used to fucking love spaghetti, now i hate them, well unless they’re cut, then they taste good. 17th of March 2004, me playing outside (sick overalls), on the 18th of April, more of me and my sister playing outside, what’s interesting is in the background; my father’s Peugeot 406 break (best car ever) and my mom’s Renault R19 (shittiest car ever). On the 20th of May my sister and I were (playing) dining outside. On the 29th of May, we seemingly got outside, not super interesting recording, tho, there’s immaculate shots of the entrance to my house. On the 4th of August, my sister’s friend came to the house so we all played together.There’s a few recordings of me playing with my plushie. I've had this plushie since I was born, I still have it to this day, many surgeries were necessary to keep him alive (thank you grandma, I’m sewing it myself now). This year we also went to the zoo of Amnéville on the 22nd of August. All I can remember about it is how disappointing most of it was, it smelled like shit and most animals were sleeping or something. The white and Albino tigers were cool as hell tho, same for the hyenas, I like hyenas. On the 29th of October at 6:51 PM my sister read me a this story precisely.

I also do remember pretty well one day, where I got angry, I can't remember why, the anger prompted me to kick the glass pane of my kitchen door. My dad proceeded to slap my ass, not hard really, but it still made me jump a few steps. I distinctly remember my slippers, they had long light brown hair. Regardless, more footage, this time from Christmas 2004, I’m not even sure what I got, it looks like some paper cutout build-a-city type of thing, I have absolutely 0 memory of ever playing with that shit. I also got a big (i think RC) motorbike with its pilot, I do remember this thing. Next footage is the earliest from 2005, on the 5th of March, me and my sister playing on the table. Then, on the 27th of March, seemingly we did an Easter “find the egg” thing?? I’m not sure why this date specifically, I have no idea, there’s no celebration on that day. On the 11th of June 2005 me and my sister played outside, we wrote random shit on our black board. Strangely enough I was wearing a bucket on my head, not sure what’s that about, I then proceeded to hop on my orange pedal tractor. The 24th of June 2005 was my sister’s end of the year school show. There's like an hour recording on that Sony DV player of it, I have no memory of it whatsoever, maybe I was left at my grandmother’s place.

PART.2 (KINDERGARTEN DAYS 2005-2008)

I actually remember my first day of school quite vividly, or at least the beginning of it, it was the 2nd of September 2005. Yeah i could've started in 2004 because I was born in January but i was still shitting myself, great. The school was situated right next to the church I got baptised in, they’re both at the top of the village. My grandma took me there, well we walked together there, I actually don’t have any prior memory of anyone mentioning school to me, though I do remember Alexander. Basically our grandparents were neighbors, I might have one very brief memory of him prior to school? But I cannot be sure, regardless. When I arrived there, my grandma sat me in the entrance. It was a square room where we had to put our slippers (yeah we weren’t allowed to wear our shoes inside, I never understood why). Upon my grandma telling me she’s gonna leave I started crying, I was scared as all hell, I tried clinging to her leg but she had to force me to stay. Upon hearing my cries the teacher came in. Her name was Miss Steak (I’m not kidding), she was a sweet woman looking back but I was always kinda scared of her. Anyway, she lifted me and hugged me in order to calm me down, I started kicking and punching her (lmao), she managed to calm me down when Alexander came in she told me that my friend was here and I wouldn’t be alone. The rest of the day was mostly uneventful, I assume I got to meet the other boys with us, not gonna name them all but we were actually not that much, the people older than us weren’t there yet I assume…

The first year of kindergarten was pretty much eventless, we had our own round table, we weren’t that many, about 8-10, we basically learned the days of the week and stuff like this. I probably got my first glasses around that age, I always hated them, especially from the youngest years, they were big round blocks of plastic and made me look stupid, but anyway. My thick ass binder full of kindergarten exercises paper has no mention of anything from 2005 so I assume it was mostly oral junk. I have this one specific memory of a blue plastic cup. I would suction the air out with my mouth so it would stick to my face, the teacher wasn’t happy about it because we had just started the day. Regardless, we did your average kindergarten activities, recess was somewhat okay, I can't say for sure what we would've played, probably TMNT considering I had (and still have) the full boxed set of the 2003 TV series. Interesting to know that the original Nintendo DS was released by that time but I would only come to own a black DS Lite and these wouldn’t come out until June 2006, weird to know I'd still get one relatively this early.