What's the point of difference? It's not an actual difference, only what I perceived between me and the people around me.

Why do I feel removed, separate, isolated?

When you asked me to look, only then did I try. I want to go back to the comfort of not caring, the getting lost in the present moment. The concentration on the small things that prevents me from noticing what really matters.

Yet I won't leave this now. I know I must finally take stock and find my way.

In my earliest memory I am not like the others. Perhaps it is because of the age difference. My brother is seven years older than me and my sisters, six and four years. They were all born before we moved back into my mother's childhood home, they had another life I did not share.

My Grandmother is holding me on her hip. She is warming the bottle for me in the silver kettle atop the wood stove. She is arguing with my mother, who is making excuses and saying that the animals needed tending and that Grandma was here for me, so she didn't worry. Grandma tells my mother that I am not her baby, and not her responsibility, that she should not be left to look after me. I know it's seems impossible that as a baby I could remember all of this, but I am certain that I do. This is my first memory.

Cassie is insanely jealous of me. She lies on the floor when Mum is changing my nappy and screams and kicks the door. Nobody goes to her until my mother has settled me into my cot, then I am jealous because I want my mother all to myself.