Front Line

Front Line - Chapter 1 - Playgroup

Front Line

Chapter 1 – Playgroup

  My name is Julianna Monroe, I’m about to tell you all the story of my average life. Not enough people talk about mundane stuff, they think it’s not ‘interesting’ enough for people to listen to, that’s not going to stop me. No reason I can’t tell anyone what’s happened to me, there must be someone wanting to hear what I have to say, no matter if it’s interesting or not. Someone.  Whoever is reading this now, you’re that someone and I thank you for getting this far, so don’t give up, keep reading and enjoy the story of my life.

  I don’t remember being told to go to playgroup, it’s just one of them things where it just happens and you don’t bother to question why. I didn’t even have a choice as to where I was going to go for that long year of my life; it would just be a place to go Monday to Friday for half of the day. Luckily mine wasn’t all that far away so if I wanted to go home, my mother wasn’t that long coming to get me, not that I actually went home for anything.

  The first ever memory that I can recall from going to playgroup involved what I thought was to be a secret entrance that only I was allowed to use. My mother dropped me off early one day as she had something to do, so as she pulled up she asked one of the workers if I could go in with her. At the time I remember there was an arch shape cut into the hedge surrounding the side of the creamy yellow building that led up a small path to the door that the workers were only allowed to go through. It led to the kitchen, it was forever stocked with the old fashioned glass bottle milk bottles with the green foil tops, and the smell of the opened milk still remains with me till this very day every time I pass it.

  Only fragments of my time at playgroup still remain with me, I wish I could remember more but it wasn’t a time in my life in which it was important to remember everything that went on. The chronological line of things is messed up; I can’t put together which memory goes where. Not that it matters, but the next thing that comes to mind is probably the reason why I am still possessive over the small things today.

  One day the workers decided to hold a game of musical statues, a popular game all kids enjoy in which you shake your ass off to any music playing until it stops, then you must keep still and the one who is last to stop moving is the one that has to step out. I think, I can’t remember fully the rules but for once and I think one of the few times in my life I actually won something. It came down to me and this other girl, I think her name was Emily, she and I were dancing it out for a purple mesh hair scrunchie with silver circle sparkles, I won. She was very angry that she didn’t win but there wasn’t much I could do, I did offer it to her but she was too mad to accept a prize by my generosity.

  Then there came a day in which I was most eager to get home, for what reason that may be it escapes my mind. I stood by the doors, they were tall and rather wide, and we were never allowed to have them open before it was time to let the animals out of the zoo as I now look back on it. However this one day for some unknown reason the doors were open just a crack, I stood at the front of the crowd of us, my hand placed on the part of the door that would be flush on with the other once closed, little did I know the minor danger of what would happen next. One of the workers told either myself or one of the other kids to step back as the door was going to be closed again, I didn’t step back in time and my thumb was in the line of the door and was sandwiched right in the space in which it should have never been.

  Looking back on that moment now, it was extremely painful at the time but if it happened now it would be a case of brushing the matter off my shoulders and carrying on. But at the time these things do seem like they’re the worst thing to happen to you, not a moment I look back on often but with it being one of the few remaining memories I have of my time there, how could I skip on telling people about it?

  There was one time I’m pretty sure my younger brother joined me for a day, sometimes when my mum had something big to do she couldn’t leave him with my grandma so on the odd occasion she must have asked if they could take him for a bit. Seen as playgroup only ever lasted half a day, it wasn’t asking for a major favour. I was around 3 or four years old so he would have been 2 or 3 himself. Not old enough to attend playgroup but they never refused my mum asking them, I looked after him of course. And if anyone ever started on my brother I would be sure to make them understand that no one would ever pick on my brother, I was very protective of him at the time, not so now a days but he was cute and sweet back then. Like a lost little puppy that needed someone watching over him, I enjoyed this time away from home with him but this wasn’t all meant to last for too long.

  Next thing I knew I wasn’t going to playgroup anymore, I couldn’t remember that summer but it must have flown by because before I knew it I was on the second step of the ladder of life, I was about to dip my toe in first into the world of education. Primary school.