memoirs, part one: my childhood

i was born in 1976, on august the 25th. i remember being quite cheerful in childhood. although i sure had some of my later traits installed already. like, once my mother took me to some place i had to wait. and i would pace back and forth with my hands behind my back. looking really serious. and there were two old men there, they would look at me, and said that i was just like them. there are a lot of pictures from the 70's in my home, many of them include a volkswagen mini, which i have had a thing for ever since. all the colours were orange and brown then. this was such a popular trend that it dominates all the pictures. we lived in the basement of blönduhlíð 7. my parents painted the floor red. but they did not use a floor paint, so the whole floor in the apartment turned slowly reddish.there was a picture of a farmer girl and boy in the hallway and they looked quite happy. i thought they were just like my parents.
i have been told thoughout my life that i am a good person, that i am kind, and a good listener, and calm and such. however, i have also been told that i am lazy, self-centered, unfond of physical labour, and such. i think you will find, in the course of this essay that both hold some truth to them. I do not consider myself a particulary 'good' person, although maybe i used to think so. when i was still innocent. then i thought of myself as a good person doing evil in the world. thus i rebelled against all the goods that were given to me. i was spoiled. then, when all this was finished, and also i had become more accepted by my family as what i wanted to be/do, on a borguese level. i suddenly descovered a new trait, i could start to think for myself, instead of living only for the sake of an anti-life. that is, doing the exact opposite of what was expected of me.
this is my idea of growing up. then, i realized, that probably an evil person trying to do good in the world (but failing miserably).
i have at least managed to do everything wrong in my relatively short lifespan. i don't know what excuses i could make for this. my intentions were good, for the most part.
of course iwas a subject of untreated depression, but i though i was normal at the time. when you tell people you feel bad, they'll reply that life is 'a river of tears' or something alike. i just think they have enough with themselves, they don't need anyone complaining as well.
i used to think i didnt remember anything before the age of 4. but i do have some faint memories of my grandmother dragging me on a tricycle through the neighbourhood. the thing that illimunates these memories is just how must joy it would give her that i was able to ride a tricycle. that this woman would explode with joy if any of her grandchildren would show the slightest sign of independant thought, seems to have lightened up this memory.
i used to imagine that my life had started at the age of 4, in a sunny birthday party. i have fond memories of this period in time. my parents had moved to america to study. i was an energetic little boy. i don't remember so much, except that in st.paul were we lived, it was freezing cold in the winter. my dad would try to heat the car up and the windows would fill with steam. Its quite weird not to remember much from a huge chunk of my life, but then again i remember, i was quite happy. i don't remember, but my father said i spent alot of time drawing and writing that winter. i remember much more from our time in california. i had a best friend called marshall. his parents were overachievers. or at least they lived really healthy. his mother would swim alot in the morning. we met every day to play with our star wars toys. i had a falcon. one day i threw it from marshalls two level bed. it landed on the floor and made a crashing sound. i had hoped it would actually fly, being so into it. that was an early illumination of the difference between fantasy and reality.
not that it would be enough. i'd crash quite a few times before i would awake.