I remember the good old days.
The days that I didn't have a single care in the world (if you don't count the fights with my siblings).
I remember everytime I was playing with my brother in our backyard so big that I didn't even call it a backyard I referred to it as the field. We would play these story games where we were fictional characters with superpowers and significant others, pretending like we were American adults, only speaking Afrikaans when we were saying what was gonna happen next.
I always wanted be 16 years old. I felt like that was the best years of your life.
Now I'm turning 16 next year.
I'm this insecure, moody teenager who is confused about every choice that she should make wishing that she could go back to the good old days in preschool where we painted with the most delicious finger paint ever. Getting a piece of paper, a cup of finger paint and a paint brush.
We then covered the whole page with the paint and then started drawing with our fingers in this wet, edible paint, not even knowing what it was made out of. Then again, if it wasn't edible the teachers would freak out if they saw us literally drinking it from the cups.
Fast forward to primary school where my brother and I would find the "paintings" of hardened finger paint and scratch it off just to eat it because we remembered how delicious it was.
I remember the coldest days where we would light the fire in the living room and my brother would joke about farting on the fire and blowing up the whole house.
I was in fifth grade when we went to visit my aunt and uncle two hours away, and about ten minutes into driving back home our neighbor called my dad.
The geyser in our roof had burst and the roof was on fire.
We were home in twenty minutes and by then half of the town was in our front yard.
Our five-person family had to stay in a two-bedroom one-bathroom apartment for six months.
The next few years passed by like a lightning bolt.
Sixth grade, moved back into our big house, started getting worse and worse grades, stood eleventh in my class at the end of the year.
Seventh grade, tried to make some friends, didn't succeed, stayed at home for 7 months because of Covid, got back to school, had to wear a mask and sit in a large circle painted on the grass because of social distancing, got my first phone, find out we had to move.
Made a list of all the good things about moving, actually looked good on my school photo (I know, shocker.), finished primary school.
Cried about leaving the only town I've ever lived in.
Moved!!
Went to highschool!!!
Eighth grade, got excited because I wasn't gonna be bullied anymore, still got bullied (mostly by my brother's new friends), tried to make friends, didn't succeed, got beaten up by a foster kid in tenth grade, tried to improve my grades, didn't succeed, almost got my first boyfriend!
Was told by said almost-boyfriend to go die in a fire.
Had a mental breakdown about it.
Finished my first year of high school (with astronomically terrible grades), got a two-hour speech about why I'm too smart to become an actress and found out I have a higher IQ than everyone in my family.
Ninth grade, the first thing that I was called on the first day of school was a bitch, or well, technically a "teef", (Afrikaans, referring to a female dog, so yeah, a bitch).
Lost my best friend from my home town, already had a new one, got some actual friends (cheers in the craziest way possible), got in contact with one of my many crushes, got blocked by said crush after confessing my feelings, tried to ask a guy to be my valentine anonymously, didn't succeed, found out that if I ask an eighth grader he was under obligation to say yes, got a nerdy eighth grader to go with me to the Valentines ball, got friendzoned by said eighth grader (the disrespect!), went on vacation, met a boy and instantly fell in love, almost kissed said boy but got walked in by his mother, didn't get the boy's number, had five to six regretful mental breakdowns about it, basically set up a whole internet search party trying to find him, didn't succeed, literally contemplated contacting his school to find him.
Decided to stop being so desperate about getting a boyfriend and focusing on my grades, genuinely studied for the first time in my life.
And now we're in the now, in the present, driving three hours to visit my grandma with cancer in my hometown, while I'm writing this piece, mentally preparing myself to see other people living in my old house, which is right across my grandma's house, wondering if I might burst into tears when I see all the photos in my grandma's hallway.
I always looked up to the people in ninth grade, and now it's me in ninth grade.
Confused about, well, everything, insecure, single, weird, good-hearted but at the same time a bad bitch, kinda lonely, kinda depressed, anxious me.
I remember those days. The good old days when I was young and without a care in the world.
