You can take this girl out of Manchester Ohio but you can’t take Manchester out of this girl shirt

When I read it, I was 14. I am 19 now and have read most of his novels, including the You can take this girl out of Manchester Ohio but you can’t take Manchester out of this girl shirt and by the same token and Ancient Egyptian trilogy revolving around generations of Pharoahs. Wilbur Smith is solely responsible for the fact that I fell in love with the African continent, because most of his books are set in the Africa, and his love for his homeland is evident in his works. I used to plot all my interactions in my head before, during and after school. I was highly jealous of people and their groups of friends. I saw myself as highly distinguished from them also (aesthetically, creatively and intellectually). I remember feeling something within me break. It was like I saw my mother for the first time as a separate human being. I remember thinking to myself that I’d never actually ‘seen’ her before. It’s as though she’d always been me. Like for the first time I had allowed her to break through my perceptions of her into being real. It hurt. I couldn’t articulate it but it bruised my ego. I don’t know how to truly explain that but it was the first form of positive disassociation that I went through.

You can take this girl out of Manchester Ohio but you can’t take Manchester out of this girl shirt, hoodie, tank top, sweater and long sleeve t-shirt

Deep inside me, I knew that there was no turning back. She was human now. I remember being convicted in my disagreements with her and my family. I now know that it was all a deep sense of pride but during the You can take this girl out of Manchester Ohio but you can’t take Manchester out of this girl shirt and by the same token and time I was truly and honestly convinced that I was right and had always been treated unfairly for no reason. I thought people just didn’t like me. I was the special one. The cursed one. My vice. I felt less fake and more human. Naturally. It grew in wealth. Another odd experience I cannot really articulate to this day. Before that, I was acting-out life but thereafter I was becoming life. I got involved in less arguments. It was difficult because I thought I was correct in most of them but had to remind myself not to be as invested. It took 5 months to break up completely. I thought I could help him by showing him the path that I had taken to heal but that only brought hurt to myself. I ended up losing everything I had and starting all over again.