My mother frequently tells me to stop worrying about boys, friends, etc and just enjoy my childhood. She tells me that the only thing I need to worry about is school; doing well in school, doing well in the extra subjects which I’m doing outside of school, and I believe that she thinks that my extra-curricular activities are just time for relaxation.
However, I believe differently. To me, enjoying my childhood means going out with my friends, liking boys and wondering if they like me back, having time to just sit back and watch T.V, or play video games, discovering fads and becoming a part of fads. I don’t want to always have something to do. I don’t want to constantly be shipped from one activity to another.
I want to be able to tell my friends, Yes, I can go to the movies with you guys, and not have to explain to them my schedule and then have us conclude that I won’t ever be able to go with them. But I can’t do that, because that’s my life.
And that’s why, when people ask me why I skipped 5th form, I can’t answer them honestly. I usually just quietly say, “I could, so I did.” That’s not the reason, though. I skipped because that was the plan. It’s been the plan for years. I don’t remember when it became the plan; I only remember being carefree in 2nd form, then all of a sudden in 3rd form the plan was to do my CSEC exams in two years and skip 5th form.
And now, my old friends have tried to re-absorb me into their circle. I don’t even talk to them that much anymore. I used to spend every class and all of lunchtime with them. I couldn’t spend afternoons with them because I was always off to a different set of lessons: English, Biology, Chemistry, Physics, and History. And of course, there were my extra-curricular activities: Ballet, School Orchestra, Netball, and Chess Club.
I had to stop Chess Club, though, because I had to go to History lessons instead. Unfortunately, the same thing has happened this year: Maths lessons, Chemistry lessons (even though I think that I’ll be fine without them), and a decision was made for me to do Physics outside of school. I don’t know who made the decision, but that’s just how it is now.
I have a new group of friends now, only because I see them often in class, and they’ve kindly let me sit with them at lunch. But it only hit me today, when one of them asked if we could all go to the cinema on Friday; of course I couldn’t, I have ballet class. Saturday afternoon is no good either, I have latin dance class.
Then he asked, “Do you have even an hour that you don’t have to do some kind of activity?”
I paused for a moment, then looked at the ground sadly and shook my head. It was true. I didn’t have even an hour that I could spend with my friends.
Then he asked, “Did you have to go to lessons all last year, too?”
I told him, “Yes.”
Another question, “Have you always been doing this much stuff?”
I reluctantly nodded. Then he made a remark, off-handed and meant to be joking, yes, but it really hit me hard in my 14-year-old heart.
“You had no childhood. Like, seriously, none.”
He had no idea how true that that statement was, he had no idea at all. That comment split me in two, and my whole existence fell into question.
Never in my life had I wanted to go out with friends more, and never in my life had I had had less of a chance of doing that than at this time. I had never really wanted to go out with friends before because I learned not to ask.
When I was smaller, I was naive and would ask my parents for anything that I wanted, but I soon realised that for most of those things, they had a sneaky way of not answering my questions. When I would ask for a chocolate chip cookie, they would ask me why I wanted it, and I would reply with some childish reason like, ‘I just want a cookie. And I like chocolate chip cookies.’
