• biggrin I am excited to finally arrive at Gaia. It was a long journey and I hit many road blocks on the way here. Now on to my story.

    I come from a very wealthy family. My parents are your basic blue bloods. Everything they have were passed down to them through the generations. This includes houses, furniture, jewelry and money. Yes, my parents are rich. They have millions in money and possessions. They never worked a day in their lives. Well, at least my father is wise in investing. The cash he got after my grand parents passed away has doubled.

    Then why am I living in the Gaia world? Don't get me wrong, I love my parents and everything and respect them deeply. However, there is more to my life then being rich and not doing anything worthwhile.

    My parents are over-protective. They never allowed me to make friends, afraid that something bad would happen to me. Therefore, I was always a loner, just reading books and writing.

    "Lulu," my father said to me one day, "you are wasting your life away with that journal." He grabbed the book out of my hand and threw it into the fireplace. Thankfully, I had just started writing in it, and my other notebooks were safely hidden away.

    "Father, I am going to be a famous author some day."

    "Do not be foolish, child. You can not survive on dreams."

    "Yes, Father," I said quietly. "I can look for a job."

    "Do not say that word!" my mother exclaimed covering her ears. "A WyCliffe has never worked in generations."

    "Sorry, mother."

    "We know what is best for you," my father said.

    "Is this the right time?" my mother asked.

    "I believe so. Lulu is not a little girl any longer." He sat down at the edge of the couch. "Lulu there is a time in life when you need to settle down."

    "I don't understand," I said slowly, but knowing and fearing what was coming next.

    "There is a time when you need to have a man to cook meals for and to tend to his every need. There is a time when you have children so you can build the next generation. The time is now."

    Before I could get in a word, my mother said, "Joseph Cooper has agreed to be your husband. Your wedding is tomorrow."

    "But, I don't want to get married yet," I protested, with tears running down my cheeks.

    My mother kissed me gently on my forehead. "Sleep on it, dear. You will know that it is a good idea in the morning. We have already ordered the dress and it will be here in the morning. Tomorrow night, you will be Mrs. Joseph Cooper."

    Well that did it, I went to my bed room and if you think that I cried myself to sleep, you are wrong. I knew that I would not get married to Joseph Cooper. Now, don't get me wrong, Joseph seems to be a very nice man. Still, I did not want to get married, at least not yet.

    I want more with my life. I want to write and even though making money from my writing is just a dream, I want to share my works with others. I even want to work and earn some money. I don't care about being rich or anything.

    I was going to run away. You see, I knew the day was coming when my parents would get me married off. All my older sisters had already been given away as wives. When they left the home to start future generations, I never say them again. Once they were out of the house, my parents forgot that they existed. I was just surprised that they assigned Joseph Cooper to be my husband. He is twenty years older than me. I figured, once I left the house as a wife or a runaway, my parents would forget that I even existed once I was gone.

    I pulled out a backpack from under my bed and looked through it. I had a few shirts and pants and the journals that my parents did not know that I had. I went to a jar I kept on my nightstand and took out some gold coins. I knew I would need some, but not all of the allowance I had saved up over the years. My parents had bought everything for me. I had so much stuff I never knew what to spend my money on. I just took out enough money to help get where I was going and to help me out when I got there. I left the rest of the money in the jar. Maybe, my parents could invest it and double the amount. Maybe, but this is wishful thinking, they would donate it to some sort of charity.

    Even though I did not know many people, I still knew where I was going to go. While surfing on the Internet, I heard about the wonderful World of Gaia. I never told my parents about this dream-come-true place, so if they did not forget about me when I left the house, they would never think of looking for me there. After, I got the directions from Map Quest, I erased all the browsing information from the computer. It really did not matter, the other day the computer was running a little slow. Instead of running the scans that clean-up the hard drive, my father threw it out and bought a new one. The old computer is now at the landfill.

    Well, I waited until my parents fell asleep. My bedroom is on the opposite side of the house, so I knew that I would not wake them. At around midnight, I opened my window and threw my bag to the ground. Then I leaned out and grabbed a hold of the oak tree branch that was handing near by. After I shimmied down the tree, I grabbed my bag and started down the road. I kept walking until dawn. By then I was several towns away. Nobody knew me there, so I was able to finally able to stop at a diner and get something to eat.