Back to School...

I would do anything to go back to school.... To lead a carefree life with the greatest crisis being homework not done or exams round the corner. May be pay a li'l more attention in class n get better grades, try to have a direction or focus from a young age so that I would have some sorta plan for the future, mebbe a goal to walk towards...

But when I was young I believed I could be anybody or anything, primarily a Teacher, coz all the women in my life were either that or Homemakers ( wouldn't want to offend anyone by saying housewife, but that's the word we knew when we were young) and I definitey wanted to work. I don't ever remember being asked or told what my options were as long as I was in school. You see,(this needs a lil background) my father had passed away in an accident when I was a year and eight months old and my younger sis was just three months. Since then my mum and us lived with our maternal grandparents. That's where we grew up with two unmarried aunts for company, one was a teacher, and might I add, a great one! And the other was mentally challenged ( I don't know the current politically correct term for that). My grandfather was a retired chartered accountant and my grandmother a homemaker, she had been a teacher at some point. My grand aunts who we visited often after Church on Sundays had all been either teachers or nurses. The latter proffession never interested me. Another aunt was a teacher and two other aunts, homemakers. My mum was a teacher too. So teaching somehow was in my blood. My sis and I spent our entire childhood pretending to be teachers and teaching imaginary children, marking attendance, setting them homework and correcting the tiny exercise books we used to make. Definitely did not want to be a priest like my great grandfather! Nobody ever told us what we should become when we grew up, nor were we ever asked what we wanted to be.

I think there was always a huge emphasis on being good and honest and nice to each other at home and in school. Being a convent school, moral science was part of the curriculum and everyday was a new lesson learnt in being an ideal person when we grew up. We told no lies, respected elders, were happy with the lives we had and didn't really know that we could demand for anything more than what we got in life. We shared, cared and helped the less privileged. We prayed and sang hymns and donated old clothes and books to charity. We kept our school and the neighbourhood clean and walked the streets with placards and slogans to spread the importance of cleanliness being next to Godliness. We didn't know slang or swear words and didn't have luxuries and comodities as the norm now. We lived our childhood as a child. Our backgrounds didn't matter to our Teachers or the Nuns. Infact we were taught that we are all the same in God's eyes. There was no rich or poor in our sheltered existense. Those who had more helped those who had less. We even had the cleaner's daughters studying with us and nobody thought anything of it. It was a level playing field for all. We never knew that wealth was a a point of pride. In fact we probably thought it was an embarrassment. Everybody used public transport to reach school with a the exception of a a handful,nobody talked about cars their fathers owned or the kind of luxury they had at home. Those were none of the our concern. I really take pride in the upbringing I've had thanks to a fantastic school and a grounded family.

But, Something happened along the way. We grew up,much to the dismay of all grown ups in our lives. And we did so without too many guidlines. Wish I had a "Dummies Guide to Growing Up." In the meanwhile, there was a lot going on at home. Issues that were blowing out of proportion, misunderstandings galore and unresolved sibling rivalry broke my family up. The strength I got from my dysfunctional but loving family during my childhood years ran out and I lost my way. I wish I could go back to being a child and start afresh. Live a lil more, play and laugh a lil more, have a few hundred goals and make some dreams come true. I wish I could go back to school...