Lately, I've been thinking about our lives as children. I wonder about my own and how it shaped me and then I think about how I know how my friends are now, but I'll never know about what they did while they were children. Because, with the exception of one or two, I know essentially nothing about their past as little kids. I mean, sure we went to highschool together or uni together or whatever, but what were our childhoods? What was it like living in your home? What made you happy? What were your toys? What did you even do? What kind of kid were you? And I think about my own friends. I mean, what was Maria like? Did she make her own kind of art? Did she play with dolls and with online dress-up games? Did she read girlfriend magazine and get jealous of other girls? And what about Jess? Was she curious? Did she wander and wonder? Was she fascinated by how things worked or interested in the outside world and nature? And Bao? What was it like for him up north? Was he just the typical boy? Was he competitive with his friends and mean to the girls he liked? Did he fight for attention and pull prank calls with his friends? Did he have friends? Did he have a trampoline at home that he always played on? Did he compete in soccer or basketball?
I always wonder because there will always be these things you don't know about your friends. And our childhoods are such a significant thing in our lives. Maybe our lives as children don't really affect our adults lives and maybe they do. Sometimes, we just live the average kid life with potato heads and family photos, but when is it ever really that simple? Nobody has the same childhood. There'll always be those things that you hold dear, memories and such. And nobody else will really ever feel the same way about them as you do. So I'm gonna talk about my life as a child now. Maybe you'll get to know me better. Here goes.
In my younger and more vulnerable years, my father gave me some advice that I've been turning over in my mind ever since. "Whenever you feel like-"
Just kiddings! I ain't no sociopath/bootlegger/party host.
When I was younger, I lived in a decent house across from a rickety old basketball court. It was known for junkees to have their fun at. This one time, I found a bottle with a piece of hose in it. But that's not important. My house was built with red bricks, it had a long backyard and an open garage.
My childhood was essentially my imagination. I didn't have many or really, any friends at all when I was younger. I just wasn't likeable enough, I guess. So instead, I retreated into my imagination. I used to do this thing where I'd walk around my backyard in circles, imagining superheroes and such fighting off bad guys. I was so happy and naive back then.
My childhood was the tree that grew green fruit in my front yard. It was a short but wide tree and when the fruit was most abundant, my mum and I would collect them in a plastic collinder, wash them, peel them, cut them in half and then eat them. They were deliciously sweet.
My childhood was being Germ Boy because it was the only way I could get attention because the boys thought I was too girly and the girls were just like no, so I thought I may as well make them like no even more. Pretty much, I licked my finger and chased girls with it. Sometimes the boys would use me as a weapon. It got me nowhere.
My childhood was having the other kids leave when I entered the room.
My first best friend was a guy called "Sean Nguyen". He was a bad influence. He broke rules and made fun of me. He would tell me to follow him and I would. To be honest, following him was always so fun, but paranoid, snitchy little me would always ruin the fun. One of my oldest regrets was telling on him for stealing a teacher's credit card with his friend. 'Til this day, I wish I could take that back. I remember at one point, he valued our friendship enough to create these things called trust points or trust coins. I don't remember exactly, but every time he betrayed me, it cost him these trust points. And I don't know why, but I remember how he used them, and they seemed so important to him. And it always used to bewilder me because he used to be so mean to me. Sean was my first best friend. I haven't seen him or spoken to him in years upon years upon years. I wonder how he is. Haha, side note, I remember flicking through this magazine with him and whenever we passed a picture of an attractive woman in lingerie, he'd always comment saying "That's gay, aye. Yeah, that's gay." I'd always just nod. lol, he probably loved that shit but was too embarrassed hahaha, puberty.
My childhood was being praised for writing this one good short story. Our stimulus was the title "the odd, little alien" or something like that and after a long story about meeting an alien, I ended the story with the title and my teacher told me I had the best piece in my class and from then I wanted to become a writer.
Which brings us to the next topic. Isn't it absolutely scary being a teacher? You have so much influence over so many minds. Don't you guys remember believing that your primary school teacher was the smartest person alive. I always thought teachers knew everything. Like they were the most knowledgeable people in the world. That's why becoming a teacher is such a scary thing to me. Maybe this isn't a problem for highschool teachers because highschool students are old enough to build their own opinions. But the mind of a child is so fragile. You could turn their whole world around so easily.
I remember this one time in year 7, at the end of one of my French classes, William Qiu started talking about Vietnam and the Vietnam war. He mentioned how dumb it was that a country would fight within itself and because it was him and because he was a tempered guy, I didn't think much of it. But Miss Mirarchi, she agreed with him. She actually said he was right, that it was so stupid for Vietnam to have a civil war, a war within its own country, and little, year 7 me was so ashamed of his own parent's home country. To this day, I am still so angry at her. What the fuck. Who the fuck did you think you were? I felt so sad to be Vietnamese. That was a terrible feeling. Honestly, fuck you, Miss Mirarchi.
Anyways, let's end this post. Goodbye, all. Maps will return in due time. Please give me feedback on the series lol Or just give me feedback in general. But if it's mean, don't tell me hahahhahh Yeah yeah, I know constructive criticism. Okay, new thing, if it's mean make it constructive and also sugarcoat it like crazy lolololol BYE!
I wonder how Sean is now :/
ReplyDelete