About 1980s - my early years of life, till the onset of puberty.
The first year of my live I spent living with my student-parents in a large city.
I lived apart from my parents between my first and fifth birthdays, and then once again a couple years later for several months. People I was left with were first my grandparents, then an unknown to me lady. They all had full time jobs or other responsibilities, and left me alone all day long, alone.
My initially estranged paternal grandparents took care of me while my young professional parents were pursuing their career goals in another city. My parents visited me a few times during those years, and even a couple of other relatives did, once.
When my parents took me back, I was five. They used their connections to put me into a 24/7 kindergarten not far from their central city apartment. I spent there two years before the elementary school.
When I was 9-10 I was "documenting" animal languages, by observing their communication and transcribing the sounds they used. Then I tried to classify the expressions I captured, and to guess their meaning.
When I was 8-9, I was preparing to transfer to a school of arts, the best in the area (county), where I could quit both my regular and music schools and have all regular, but also art and music lessons there, for 8-9 hours a day, 6 days a week.
One afternoon I come back from the elementary level first grade classes in school and discover that my art albums are gone. My mother has just recycled them. I freeze in our long corridor-library, and all I can think about for a while is the distribution of light from the glass doors of the living room and my own room after it that hits bookshelves and my mother, respectively.
My parents had many friends - geologists, philosophers, mathematicians, and many others, but mostly from academia - and we often partied at our place and their homes.
Their kid's minds, including mine, were routinely challenged with philosophical paradoxes, barely conceivable facts, and existential problems.
I had at least five protective factors in my childhood, according to this common questionnaire.
A new boy came to our kindergarten group. One day, we were looking at flowers outside and started talking. Soon after, we somehow new that we belonged together. We were five or six. Knowing he was there made me happier than anything.
