Assorted Ravings of the Slightly-Weird

Flashback

Today, inexplicably, I woke up and for the briefest moment I was back in primary school.

Uniform and all, with the white socks almost up to my knees and the Bata shoes gleaming white from the liquid paper-like substance that I had to slather over my shoes every Sunday night until the canvas shoes became almost as tough as leather. In my flashback, it was just after recess. So there we all were, crouched over the drains diligently brushing our teeth.

I still remember my cup - it was a red cup with my name labelled on it. Does anyone remember those early-age labelling machines - they were round and you fed some kind of tape into them and manually adjusted the letters? Whatever do you call that machine, if it can even be classified as one?

I digress. So there we were, 40-odd of us P1 students, brushing our teeth. Up and down, up and down. Left and right, left and right. Rinse, spit, repeat.

I have no idea why my mind chose to bring back this memory. Maybe I'm not brushing my teeth properly, and my subconscious is trying to remind me of the drills we learnt way back when. Or maybe I'm yearning for a time when life was much simpler, when all we had to do was go to school and finish our homework on time. All I had to worry about back then was remembering to bring the right books to school, and not be late. (Rather than worrying about donkeys.)

Speaking of school, I went back to my alma mater recently. Here's a cheap thrill: seeing your name up on a board in your secondary school. Hah. I went back and to my surprise, there it was, right near the main driveway. 2 boards listing the various houses that had won over the years (and satisfyingly, the board was predominantly blue) and their captains. A concrete, physical sign that for four years I was there and had, in some way, left my mark. It was so funny, I had to take a photo of myself, pointing at my name.

It's bittersweet to revisit. You go back and you remember the fun times you spent in school with all your friends, and how little things seemed so important then. You pop by your old classrooms, you visit with some of the teachers who are still there. You see the students walking around and you wonder if you were ever that small, that young, that raw. You look around with a smile on your face, a smile that is tinged with sadness because you know that you'll never be able to go back and experience it all over again.

Maybe my flashback today was just another reminder of that: that life goes forward and we go forward with it whether we want to or not. But sometimes, it's nice to remember and to relive it for the briefest of moments.

Posted by scrabbyfoo at February 14, 2007 01:06 AM