“If you carry your childhood with you, you never become older.”
Yep, that's me. It was the day of my 1st birthday. So I can say it was taken in April 22nd, 1994. Did I look happy? No? Well, I was sort of a grumpy child, even as a toddler. Why, I don't know. Perhaps because I was always in need of more chocolate? I will never know. Did I love the cake? It seems so, because I was always the fat kid who loves cake. I remember that each year until probably my tenth birthday, my mom would go out and buy me customized cake for me to blow some candles on. Maybe because I'm the youngest in my family, everyone seems to have vivid memories of my childhood; something that I can only remember very vaguely. All I know from their story is this: I was pretty much a spoiled kid. That's one of the many perks of being the last born, though. Your father would gladly buy you all the things they have in Toys R Us. Your mother would always, always see you as her baby and loves you as that. Your sisters would keep on thinking that you're this annoying baby who stole their light, and their candies, all the while thinking that you're this magical doll that can smile, laugh, talk, eat.... and unfortunately shouting cries.
Well, I was very loud as a kid. I cried loudly, perhaps even woke the neighbors. I cried each time my mom was praying Eid. I yelled at people (how bossy). I was grumpy, never really been essentially happy. But even despite all of that, people seem to remember me as this chubby baby who was really silly and really, really annoying. Once, when I still struggled to read, I asked my mom to translate me the whole lyrics to 'Don't Cry For Me Argentina'. I used to be very jealous of my big sisters, that every single thing they have, I gotta have one too. I could not go one day without asking my parents what my sister had in her hands. I was pretty spoiled too. Once when I was 6, my mom wanted to see her old friends in Europe, and I wouldn't let her go. So I tagged along, and bringing my ultimate babysitter too: my middle sister.
On the other hand, I was pretty much a brave kid too. I started kindergarten at 4 years old, and one day, the help wasn't standby in my school but we were let go early. I knew the way home from school, so I decided to go home by myself. Yes, that's exactly what this 5 year old kid can do: going home by herself. In elementary school, I got involved in a lot of fights with the boys, because young boys tend to be so annoying, right?
Growing up, I was pretty much my maid's kid. She, I mean they, raised me like I was her own kid. Once in kindergarten, I fell off a swing and hurt my knee, so she brought me home and I didn't wanna talk to my mom on the phone. All I wanted was to take a nice nap in my maid's room, that's all. My mom was very concerned with her career when I was little. She had just started out her legal career and was busy as hell. But she didn't want to hire a babysitter for me, so she always brought me along anywhere she went. She brought me to her postgrad classes, to the library. She brought me up to meetings. She brought me to... oh, God knows what else. Sure enough, she had to bribe me with so many chocolates and food to keep me from complaining. So I met a lot of adults, which, in her logic, is the reason why I grew up way beyond my age. Somehow, without so many life experience, I was able to find some wisdom that came from nowhere. By the time I was 8, I have started to write my own fictional stories, and most of them were about grief, death, loss... I mean, I was pretty much a goth! Looking back, writing is the only activity that I've been constantly doing. I have gone back and forth in pursuing every kinds of careers possible in my future, but the only thing I've constantly given a thought of was to be a writer. Of course, it doesn't sound like a real job to my parents' ears, so... Well, let's go back to the things kid in the picture knows.
Of course I can't remember what I knew when I was one year old. Psychologically speaking, everyone had a childhood amnesia by the time they turned 3, so they'd forget everything that happened in their first three years of living. But I know exactly what that kid didn't know. That kid didn't know that life is more than a bar of chocolate. She didn't know that the classes she went to with her mom, she would end up in the same place seventeen years later. She didn't know that there are more friends than just her two big sisters; there are friends, enemies, frenemies, archenemies, ex-friends, good friends, best friends... and lovers. She didn't know that there are so many good books to read, so many great music to listen to, so many places to go to, so many shoes to have, and she would want it all, because she's a girl! She didn't know that life really does imitate art, and for that, at some point in life, dramas would occur. She would grow up watching too many Disney movies and read too many fairy tales, and she didn't know that not all of hopes and dreams can become true, and that at some point, she would have to let them go. God, she knew nothing! It's exhausting trying to list what she didn't know. It's exhausting trying to live the life she would have to lead. It's exhausting. It is.
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