Tuesday 13 January 2015

Eight years old

Eight year old self

So, would my eight year old self be proud of me?  I don't know. She was a bit dreamy and vague, that eight year old.  A lot of activity went on inside her head, but she didn't really share a lot of it, or perhaps she wasn't able to make herself heard so communications, ideas and opinions were lost on others.  Her mother couldn't tell what things were important to her and what weren't.  Her somewhat distracted mother, I suspect.

She lived in a bit of an imaginary world.  In that world, the garden was an adventure.  Things in it weren't what they seemed.  Mud could be turned into almost every substance possible.  Trees became extraordinary buildings, toys became walking talking characters, and catkins held many many possibilities.  These things were enough.  Adults didn't really play much of a role, and I don't think my 8 year old self had a particular adult she'd have looked up at and said wow.  I think it would have taken quite a bit to impress her.

She liked adults who talked, who smiled, laughed, and who listened enough to understand what of themselves to give back to an imaginative but quiet eight year old.  She was impressed with the loud adventuresses, in that sense that they were a breed apart, something quite out of the ordinary.  I don't think she wanted to be one though, she just liked that they existed and that they were women who did stuff, who made stuff happen.

I think my eight year old self would have been happy to stay that way, stay eight.  She'd have been impressed at me moving to London all on my own, and she'd have been sad about my husband dying.  She had an empathy for life's tragedies.  She'd  have listened avidly to tales of New Zealand travels too, and she'd have enjoyed the camper van with everything in miniature.  This is the child that tried to create homes in the back garden bushes and flower beds.  She'd have wanted me to be with my prince charming.