I hesitate to begin, not knowing where in the world to start. The story of my short life is an overwhelming task to record, and I am sure it will take quite a while. Besides that is my scarcity of time and supplies necessary to write it all down. However, I will do the best I can with what I am given. My greatest fear is that no one will know nor care what happened to me, that no one cared that Christine Daae simply disappeared one day. So I write down these events in hope that this collection will once be found and that my story will be known to at least one other person besides myself.
I suppose I should start out about myself. It will make my actions during my adventures seem much more rational if you knew why I made them. I was born Christine Daae to a good, strong family. We loved each other very much. My father was a geophysicist, working wherever there was work to be found. Geophysicists' salaries are quite agreeable, so I grew up wanting little. We moved quite often, wherever oil was found, so I grew up thinking families moving every six months was the normal thing to do. Because of the change, my sister Lydia and I were home schooled by my stay at home mother, who loved us dearly and we in return. I actually was enrolled in a school for about a year. The town had struck it rich with oil, and we stayed for quite a while. I was put into a private school.
It was there that I met Raoul. At first we were enemies. He would tease me and call me names and send me home crying. But through time we became good friends, and I was terrified that we would move again. He was my first real non-related friend, and I loved him dearly. But we did move again. On the day I told him we were moving he took me behind the school and gave me a kiss on the cheek. I was only eleven, and boys still had cooties. I ran back to my car and didn't see Raoul until quite a long time later.
As I grew up, I took a special interest in music and theater. I took piano lessons for a few months, but again was forced to quit because of our moving. As soon as we settled into a new house I would go searching for a theater and beg to be a volunteer, doing whatever I could to assist the cast and crew. A few times they even let me be an extra. I was never happier than up onstage, singing my heart out with a large smile on my face. It was then that I knew I had to devote my life to music and the arts. Unfortunately, I was rather deplorable at singing, but that didn't prevent my enthusiasm for trying.
When I was fifteen, my father died in a terrible accident in his workplace. It was devastating, especially to my poor mother, who loved him very much. In the days before his funeral she would come home at two in the morning, smelling of alcohol, and climb straight to bed without a word to us. Our insurance covered a lot of our expenses, but my mother was still forced to take up a job in New Jersey, where we resided for the next four years. My sister and I were obligated to work throughout our high school years, donating almost all of our money to mother's necessities such as alcohol. But she was never abusive. She was a heavy drinker, brooding on the darker aspects of her life, sometimes randomly bursting into tears. My sister and I were unprepared for this desperate situation we were left in, and had no idea how to handle it.
When I was a senior in high school I had begun to seriously think about pursuing a career in music. That is, until my mother, drunk to the point of rage, screamed at me to become realistic and stop my stupid childhood fantasies of becoming a singer. She said that I couldn't sing worth anything, and that I was much more capable of studying something realistic, like nursing. Because of the recent conditions which fate had thrown at me, I had begun to have a weak self-esteem, and realized my mother was right. I had decent grades, and was accepted into a small college in New York. I was never more miserable when I was reading my acceptance letter.
My mother took her own life two weeks after my eighteenth birthday. I think she was waiting until we were both legally adults and she wouldn't have to worry about us. In the week before her funeral Lydia and I grew to hate each other, each of us blaming the other for both of our parent's death. How I regret our pitiful arguments! But after the funeral there was no need to see each other. We each went our separate ways, revealing nothing of our future plans. I went to college and rented a pitiful apartment that allowed me to sleep indoors. Most people in New York aren't so lucky. I got a job and my days began to get hectic. I would barely get five hours of sleep each night before getting up to attend classes, which confused me greatly. I had never paid much attention in science, and disliked it immensely. I was confused, angry, and tired constantly.
So theater became my outlet. I found a pathetic theater a few blocks away from my apartment and was instantly involved. I cut classes to audition and sing. My grades suffered, and I was threatened with expulsion unless I got my act together. I was a silly nineteen year-old, and I quit college, with a mere high school diploma and was only part-way into getting my associates. But I could now sing much more often, and my job didn't seem so long since I was getting sleep each night. I was living a pitiful life, I knew it, but I was happy.
I must admit my hand is cramping from all the things I have been writing, but I must continue. I have a few hours given to me for my free time, and I am going to use the wisely.
He has just knocked on my door. Has the hours gone so fast? I must depart, my dear journal, and continue you soon.
