Dear Future Child

Mid 2000's - Many more moves

Back to small towns

After Morden, our next move led us to Rye, a picturesque town in East Sussex near the coast. Think quintessential cobbled streets with half-timbered houses. My love for small market towns and cottages definitely started here.

We moved onto the flat above the restaurant where my parents worked, which was at the bottom of the town centre, so we always got to be there for the festivities, and I started school pretty much straight away, (finally). We were there for 6 months and our time in Rye was bittersweet.

For us the children especially, living above the restaurant was just a great new experience and many times we even had chef-cooked meals and pizza almost on demand! Everyone was kind and accepting there at the restaurant and we remember everyone fondly to this day, in fact we semi-recently went back to give everyone hugs.

Unfortunately, that did mean we gained the weight to boot too! So, with the kids at school, things were a little different.

For starters, I joined at a time and age when it is not easy to be a teen and I found it really, really difficult. And secondly, perhaps due to it being a small town, aside from a black guy doing his GCSEs who I nodded to in an arts class once (yes, he looked confused that I randomly nodded at him), I was the only brown kid that I ever saw in my school.

Though to be fair, I was also 4'11ft at the time so maybe I simply didn't see them in the crowds (doubtful) but still just in case, let's stick with I was certainly the only foreigner or person of colour in my year.

Lastly, this being a small town, these kids had grown up there and their parents had grown up there so to come into the already formed groups just did not happen initially.

Of course, by then I was already a little scarred thanks to my earlier Morden interactions so naturally felt a little sensitive to all remarks.

Don't get me wrong, there was definitely some hazing. I remember an incident at a parking lot where I was chased down. I also felt like I'd gained a stalker for a month, someone took to calling my phone and would just sit there in silence until I hung up. Thankfully it was a pre-paid phone (will these even still exist when you're old enough to have one Dear Child?), so I'd later just change my sim card.

But all in all, it all worked out. I never found out who was behind the calls but on the earlier incident, the head teacher was somehow made aware, one of the girls later apologised, and we'd later even play on the same team together.

All in all, I settled in well enough eventually. I did cry a lot for the first couple of months, (at home obviously I couldn't let them see me like that – I am an ugly crier) and asked my mom to take me out of that school even more.

But as with most things after a while, (though it felt like a lifetime at the time!) things settled.

I made some lovely friends who'd later make the treks to see me when I moved and although we don't see each other anymore they'll always hold a place in my heart.

It's funny to think back on those earlier weeks and months when I didn't know it yet, but by the time our 6 months lease was up and we'd just up and move to Hastings I'd cry to stay.

Lots of things happened during this period of time, but the point is Dear Child, time is fleeting.

Sometimes as you go through school and more generally later in life it will be hard. Just by looking at your skin colour, your peers may judge you to be different at first.

Stick with it, even if you know your time somewhere is short keep yourself open, and I know that in the end, things will work out exactly how they were meant to be.