As a young girl, I was quite.. Peculiar, to put it nicely. At least I think so. I remember finding myself doing a lot of things alone - like playing with my toys (which as my sisters put it "hoarding and arranging stickers" - I'll explain later), and interacting with those much older than me. When I was about 7 or so, I would always hang around when my sisters friends would come over. I guess it was weird having two older sisters and being the youngest with strange age-gaps as well as not living in the UK with the cousins who were about the same age as me. That's why my sisters wouldn't obviously want to do things with me that were too "young" for them, such as playing with my awesome doll house (without dolls of course, considering I hated dolls), my kitchen set (of course! I've been a chef from a young age!) and board games like Guess Who and etc.
I look back on my childhood now, whilst I see my nieces and nephew grow up, and that's when all these thoughts came into my head. I started thinking about all the things I used to do when I was younger, and how exactly I spent my time. A large part of me obviously stems from my childhood, which I hope has evolved for the better right now.
When we first moved to the UAE, I remember being ill all the time. There were weeks I wouldn't attend school due to extremely high fever, nose bleeds and all sorts of crazy things like that. There were many nights I would wake up with my pillow soaked in blood from my nose, and wouldn't really know why it would happen. There were also those days I wouldn't want to go to school because I was scared of an Arabic or French test I'd have (languages have clearly never been my forte!) There are several things that stick out a great deal from the first few years we spent across Dubai and Abu Dhabi - such as having nightmares all the time (some I still remember vividly!), and having my family over from the US and UK a lot as well. It was also around that time where I went to India on a massive family trip around different cities - such as going to see the Taj Mahal and the Agra (red) Fort.
Growing up, I recall spending a lot of time with my parents without my sisters as well. As they were older than me, they were allowed to go on holidays with my cousins and do other things whilst I stayed wherever my parents were. I didn't usually mind as I used to keep myself quite busy doing all sorts like reading comics (ARCHIE'S ftw!) and watching movies that I never really understood with my dad like, Jason and the Argonauts or some strange Indian movie which I used to watch exhaustively. I used to hang out with them quite a lot, and what's strange is that I can't remember what I used to do with them. It seems like such a blur, for the most part.
There were lots of moments with food though. It explains a lot about the chub I walked around with for many years. Yes, food! Eating many shawarma's (from around town) and fish fillets from McDonalds was just the beginning. Food was something I think became a part of my personality, weird as it sounds. Everyone would always ask my mum what she was feeding me, as I was quite a healthy little (fat) girl. There was this phase where I was piling on the tyres by the week, and my parents began worrying for me - perhaps I had a thyroid problem, or some type of hormonal imbalance. There were so many blood tests that were taken for the following two-three weeks. It was actually around that time where my fear for needles vanished as I became so accustomed to them. Alas, it was found that I had no health issue associated to the increase in my weight, but that I was just happy and jolly by nature.
I feel quite sad knowing how much time I spent alone though. I used to have many, many friends - some I still meet every time I go to Dubai and others who have become very close to me. I would always attend birthday parties and other get togethers like that - but I would never go out of my way to go visit them and stay over at their house or something. I was so used to playing, watching, reading and just being alone. Yes, I used to collect a lot of things - like coins, phone cards, stickers, stationary (especially colour pencils and rubbers), as well as little unusual objects which I strangely still have. Whilst cleaning out a lot of my junk last month, I came across various things which I had since I was very young. It hit me then, that I spent a lot of time dazing off to this very unknown world of mine. I was a very eccentric child.
I think the reason to why I was like that, was due to how many times we would move. I never really thought about it until recently. We would move cities or houses within cities quite a lot. I didn't mind of course, cause each time my parents made sure we were comfortable and settled perfectly well. I think that's what lead me to have less attachments to the friends I made across the Middle East, but at the same time understand the reality of things as well.
There are so many of my sisters friends (who have over time become family friends, due to my cousins moving to the Middle East and attending the same schools as us) who knew me as I was growing up. They remember such silly things about me but they also remember how I used to always be the youngest person at the gatherings they would have. It's clear now, that I was always older than my age. The interactions I would look for, always came from much older people. Perhaps that's why throughout my "teenage" years, I found myself constantly hanging around individuals who were very different - people who didn't fit into cliques or had a "group" they hung out with during lunch/PE times and those who were also eclectic in their own ways. However, I somehow always found something more in them than others would. I look back now on all the "close friendships" I had each year of my secondary school, and began noticing the above pattern in the friends I made.
I've learnt in Psychology how your experiences at a young age, affect you at a later age - such as how you are in a romantic relationship or how you form friendships. I have to say it's absolutely true. I am the type of person who has kept in touch with the people I met way back in Kindergarten - and have very very few close friends who know me well currently.
I have also seen how different children are now. I mean, a large portion of their lives are dependent upon technology. Children as young as 3 know how to operate a laptop probably better than their own parents, and use language to form such surprising phrases. I'm not saying that I was dense as a child or anything, but there were so many other things I would do with my time. I know that this new generation is quite different obviously, and can't live the way I did or my sisters did whilst we were growing up, and they would probably be singled out as being weird -- but I guess I feel almost sorry for them. Even the cartoons they watch, it's not the innocent single-meaning type that I used to watch. I mean shows like Ben 10 and this whole absolutely annoying Disney-Channel era of Hannah Montana and Jonas Brothers is just not young-childlike, you know? I mean, they have double meaning jokes and apparent hidden messages (which make parents paranoid) in mostly many "young" shows and cartoons. There's absolutely no innocence left. I think I was really really innocent till my late-teenage years. And I loved it. No, I wasn't naive or stupid, just innocent. When others were off doing ridiculous things with their boyfriends at age 15, I was busy reading, writing, hanging out with the family, travelling and just trying to keep up with having acne and all those crazy things.
When I was doing my A-levels in Media Studies, I recall doing this whole module on children TV - like a before and after segment - from the 70's and 80's to the current millennium. It was one of the most interesting topics I had ever studied. I remember watching episodes of Bag Puss and the old and original Scooby doo as well as others like Sesame Street. It was quite strange to see how overtime people started finding reasons to make shows like Sesame Street seem perverted. When I watch an old episode now, I don't find it corrupted.
I have heard many stories of myself as a baby, infant, toddler and annoying-aged child (the very silly age from 4 - 10) throughout my life. I have heard the stories about my singing abilities of many songs, and how loudly I screeched when I didn't get something I wanted or when somebody teased me. I've heard it all. But one of my most favourite stories is how much I used to love the song "Nothings Gonna Change My Love for You by Glenn Mederios" (linked) at the age of 3. Obviously I had no idea what the song was, what the dude was saying or why it was a nice song. But it's just something that really makes me smile.
I hope this post (and song) manages to trigger some really sweet and pleasant childhood memories for you today.
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