Life no longer contained all of the old thrills and chills it used to. That’s what I seem think from now on anyhow. Although technically I have no reason to think so, being only 19 years old. It’s not as though I’ve even lived out half of my life, so I’m not really in any position to voice my opinion on how shit I think it’s been. Then again if I died tomorrow my life would have amounted to nothing at all.
The strangest thing is that so far I seem to have no problem in accepting my complete lack of enthusiasm in the challenge that is life. I have discovered in fact that every day tasks or general enjoyment of life itself can be a lot difficult for some than others. I seem to be someone who struggles to find happiness with what I’m doing.
Most of the time I just blame myself from lack of trying. Occasionally I will convince myself that I’m doing the best I can but the majority of the time I’m probably lying. For instance in school I always seem to be that person that always really has to try to get somewhere and never really ends up getting anything higher than a B. The only good grade I got was an A in art and that’s never really anything to be happy about because it’s not that hard to get an A in GCSE art. I managed to get a C in P.E, even though I didn’t turn up to the exam, which just shows the flaws in our educational system, marking someone who wasn’t actually there.
Whenever I seemed to think that I was trying really hard to get a good grade I would simply be soarly disappointed. It annoyed me that I couldn’t be one of two categories. There are the boffins, who get excellent grades and don’t care if people call them names because they are smart and will inevitably go to oxford or Cambridge to study brain surgery or something equally prestigious. Then there are the stupid people who don’t care whether or not they are stupid because they don’t pay attention anyway and would much prefer to wait around after to school to beat people up before heading to a nearby field to smoke, get pissed and shag some stranger senseless. Although the latter does not really appeal to me I never seemed to fit into either category. I’m in the shitty category in the middle, the people who try really hard, but never seem to get anywhere and are never really remembered in their high school years for doing anything significant, like getting expelled or being top of the class in higher tier math.
The people I belong to will plod along, trying to be something in this ever-changing world and then the moment they think they’ve got it figured out and that they’ve found something they can actually do really well some sort of hurdle appears and they are once again at the bottom.
School had always been difficult. I was the person in the class who wasn’t very bright and kept to herself. A hermit with no special talent to speak of. I used to wear huge baggy clothes which in turn made me a lot less confident about my body. Usually you wear clothes because you’re not confident about your body, whereas for me I think it was the other way around. In my first year of high school I wore this thick black coat everywhere, that came three quarters of the way down my legs. I wouldn’t be seen at school without this coat. I believe I even wore it while I was in class and the teachers used to ask me to remove it. They would query as to whether or not I was cold, pointedly looking at my coat, hinting that they didn’t think I should have it on. I tended to ignore the ones who couldn’t be bothered to ask me to remove it. Pretending to be ignorant of their blatant hinting I shrugged, replied that I was a little cold, received a blank, annoyed expression from the prosecutor and then the lesson continued with no further hindrance. In the second year I was a little more daring and wore a black coat that only went down to my knees and had an awful purple silky lining. I adored this coat even more than the last, even though I believe both were hand me downs. I lived off of hand me downs. In fact when I recall my childhood I realize that I wasn’t at all fashion conscious. I wore old clothes that my sister was about to throw out, most of which became out of fashion about three years prior and some that were slightly too small, but I loved them the most and insisted on wearing them inside the house. In fact I remember when I was younger and realized that I appeared to be an early developer, having already discovered the power of my breasts a long time before anyone else in my class had. Although the first bra I ever wore was given to me as a gift by my granny. She seemed to pass It to my mother proudly stating the fact that her little girl was growing up. I was more concerned about having to tell people that my gran shopped for my underwear. You could tell she had, also. The bra was a silky dark yellow colour with frills up the side and a little bow in the middle. Of course I fell in love with it instantly and secretly thanked my grandmother for having such excellent taste in lingerie.
I would walk around my bedroom in this bra, posing and trying to look seductive like I’d seen people do on the television but I never was very good at posing. I remember trying to practice walking in high heels for future use except I had to pretend to be wearing heels because I was blatantly too young for them at that age, even though it seems that in 2006 even six year olds can walk around looking like sluts. Anyway I had this favorite hand me down red shirt. It was tight and knitted, with a V neck, showing off my boobs and I loved trying it on with my new bra, strutting my stuff around my bedroom, which was only about three meters long by 1 and a half wide so I couldn’t strut very far but I felt like a star.
Although high school was a challenge I still remember what once was the innocence of childhood before high school, when popularity and success didn’t even mean anything to my generation. I enjoyed the time before middle school the most. The greatly missed first school, or in my case Foxhayes first school. I thought it was so cool that I went to a school that had a fox as it’s logo because it meant that the school uniform looked really cute and cuddly. On my first day there I didn’t think I would like it and wouldn’t stop crying. I clung to the corner of my mums coat until a teacher dragged me away. Then after the first hour I loved it. It didn’t feel like we were actually learning anything whereas we secretly were. They used crafty ways of getting us to take things in and it usually worked. They taught us our alphabet by turning each letter into little characters and making a story out of them. I think they still exist and are actually very popular, very aptly named “The alphabets”. We were like little sponges, so eager to play and remember each of their names. Harry H is the only one I remember now.
Then there were was the wonderful time when we would practice our handwriting and watch a video called the magic pen. It’d just be a programme with a black board and the magic red/yellow (I cant remember the colour!) pen would write letters across the board and as he did so the end of the pen would light up and some music would play. Then of course we would have to copy him. It was one of the best moments in first school, when I got to watch the magic pen. I loved that time when I was so easily amused by things and didn’t care.
Of course the best part about first school was story time. We would actually get to drink a carton of milk, which looking back now I think was an excellent idea. We used to lie down on the floor and drink our milk, which I’m sure we should be drinking while we are lying down. Anyway, we would drink our milk and be told a story and then I believe it was the end of the day and we could go home.
First school became a fabulous holiday for me. I loved it. I liked going out in play time and playing chase with everyone and getting to play in the sand box or the pond we had. Then towards the end of the year my dad would walk me to and from school, even though our house was only about 50 meters away from the school itself. When I was about to go inside he would high five me and say “See you later alligator” and of course I didn’t realize that this was a phrase commonly used by many people. I just thought my Dad was really cool. It became a little private morning ritual between me and my dad for a while as I was walking into the school gates he always had to say it.
I couldn’t help but think lately about change and the lack of certaintainty there is in peoples lives, mainly mine. I happened to be walking home from work, and as it was Christmas it was already dark at 5.30. I don’t pay attention to the people I’m walking home with because although I am walking near them they are strangers to me. Every face looks the same in the night, not that you can see peoples faces because we all shuffle along with our heads lowered, scarves up to our chins hoping not to be noticed. However the other night someone did notice me, barely, as I had my headphones in and had I not been switching songs I would not have heard them say “excuse me” in my general direction. When I turned around and noticed a man walking beside me I realized I had seen him a few times before when I walked home. I soon discovered that his name was Mr Sing and he was very interested in what I had to say, it seemed.
I was a painfully shy child when I was younger. Children my age seemed to be far ahead of me in confidence and self esteem. I remember the torturing journey of first getting on a bus by myself. I dropped my money and then forgot to take my ticket. I found traveling alone completely daunting, not being very good at directions on my own I would worry that Id miss the stop and get lost. I still don’t know how to get to my doctors on my own because you have to catch two buses. All my friends were used to going into town on their own, or with each other. I refused to go into town on my own, though and would insist that my Mother accompany me in case something happened. I don’t know what I was so afraid of to be honest, and I still don’t. I cant say that my confidence is as high as some other people that I know. I have improved I must admit, but I still find solitary missions scary.
Walking home in the dark is a challenge for me anyway. I don’t like to travel places without listening to my music, its not something I can do. However if I listen to my music I find that I cannot hear what is going on around me and if some stranger decides to creep up and jump me I would not be able to hear them coming. I probably wouldn’t be able to do anything if someone did decide to do such a thing but I suppose it would be better to know what was happening, less of a shock maybe ________________________________________________________
We let it run around the house a bit and put some dog food down for it, because we don’t keep cats and don’t have cat food.
Dont you just love Vicks vaporub?
