I'd usually eat breakfast in the room where they also had dinner (it was the kid's room previously) or sometimes we had on a little pull-out table in the kitchen. Many times, it was toast and because the toaster was already a bit old, my grandma would scratch off the dark bits and usually put creamy cheese on it. Sometimes jam.
It's weird for me to think that my grandparents must have been in their late 50s then, because I am not that far off anymore. I spent a lot of time with them because my mom had to work and I would usually go there after kindergarten or school. Until I was 10 or 11, we lived close to them too, so my mom would let me stay there as she had to go to work.
If we didn't have breakfast or lunch or dinner, I'd draw (my grandma still has those drawings, it seems I drew a lot of war stuff) or watch whatever cartoon was on tv or play outside with the other kids.
That seems so different to how kids must grow up today with smartphones and YouTube and everything. We had none of it and I miss it:(. Sometimes I'd join my grandpa to walk to the nearby farm through the dark to get some milk in a can he brought and we'd have fresh cocao with fresh milk and watch some tv series or something (although we rarely were allowed to eat in the living room).
Basically, many, many things that I take for granted now and that aren't that special anymore were back then, simply because they were treated as special occasions.
I also remember reading A LOT! Since we learned how to read in 1st grade and I had my first library card, I must have read 100-200 books per year easily. I wasn't picky either, I'd read pretty much anything! Comics, books for girls, books for kids, even some books for adults. I guess it was my way of escapism, for I already seemed to feel a certain depression at a young age (my grandma said I once asked her why I can't die/why I am alive and I was only 5 years old).
I remember that in those days, my mom would take me to see her friends and their kids a lot. Many of them, I lost touch with decades ago or can't even remember. But I think it was very important to be around other children in those formative years. Even though I would read a lot later on, I would also do things you don't even see in movies anymore, like sack races, playing hide and seek or being on playgrounds. I also recall that we didn't care at all about race or gender or disabilities. I seem to have been friends with a little Turkish girl who gifted me a necklace with a gods eye. If I think about it now, it's really sweet and I wonder what happened to that necklace.
I also recall having a ring with a dolphin that I really treasured, but I lost it in 1996 on our trip to Austria in a public bath or it broke or something and I was devastated:(.
I mention all these things because I feel that everyday life back then and now couldn't be more different. And I am not sure why. Is it just the changes in technology? Is it because I am older, so my interests changed? Did I become a victim of instant gratification? I mean, back then we couldn't choose what movies to watch or what shows. You'd watch whatever was on, WHEN it was on. And we didn't get to or want to watch that much tv anyways. We'd play outside or inside, with or without toys, Nintendo or boardgames...there was a variety and I think we were happier for it.
I mean, I do recall that I sometimes watched a movie while playing with my Gameboy at the same time. But is that the same as playing with our phone? Gameboys had no internet!
I just wonder if there's a way I can feel like that child again. And at the same time, I wonder if I actually glorify the past and if it wasn't all THAT happy and just seems happy through rose colored lenses because it's in the past now?
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