I lived a normal life for a number of years. I had kids. I lived up on a farm in Gloucestershire in rural England, and just kind of got back to reality again.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
I was a regular kid with a normal family life.
I grew up in a very small country town in Victoria. I had a very normal, low-key kind of upbringing. I went to school, I hung out with my friends, I fought with my younger sisters. It was all very normal.
In the period where I had to live the life of a citizen - a life where, like everybody else, I did tons of laundry and cleaned toilet bowls, changed hundreds of diapers and nursed children - I learned a lot.
I still live in the same place I've lived all my life.
I grew up in a one-parent family. I worked my way through college, I had very average grades and I was very average looking, but I've lived a remarkable life only because I believed I could.
I had a very turbulent and painful childhood, like many people. I left for college when I was 16 years old and up until that point I'd lived in five different family configurations. Each one ended or changed through a death or some terrible loss.
Looking back, I guess I've lived an unusual life.
We lived on isolated farms and ranches, far from anybody, and when I was young I knew very few other kids, so I lived to a great extent in my imagination.
I've had a lot of different lives. I was adopted, I grew up in Nebraska, and then I went to Northwestern... Then I had this really extraordinary, different life than my parents.
I still live as normal a life as anybody else. I have two homes to run. I have my staff to take care of. I work, pay bills and attend society meetings like everybody else.