ESL Blogs

As a child I used to be a little bit crazy, some people who know me would say I am crazy till now but the childhood craziness was a different one. It was something innocent, a craziness that couldn’t hurt but bring fun! My craziness was about creating stories, very spooky stories and sometimes even I myself believed in them. Whenever I saw people watching out of the window, I would imagine they were ghosts, souls of dead people who once lived in these houses and were killed or commited a suicide and their souls never left their home. Once I even made my mother believe that I saw a ghost of our diseased relative on her son’s wedding day. In fact I simply saw her sister who looked so much like the dead relative we had.

 I liked making up various stories and tell them to my mom or grandma or sister, to entertain them. They of course pretended to believe me and faked such a curiosity about my stories. Funny ha! My stories would never stop floating my brain and our family members were going crazy from my constant bla –blaing!  

Even though  I enjoyed storytelling I meantime felt very guilty because I knew they were all lies and, as I thought, my family believed me.  My grandma used to tell me that if I tell a lie the God would consider it as a big sin and when I die I will go to hell where horrible demons will be cutting my tongue every day for an eternity. Seems like I wasn’t the only story maker in my family ;) Thus I grew up with guilty-happy feelings.

When I was 10 or maybe 12 years old I was still noticing people watching out of the windows but more often I would look into their windows, especially at the dark times when the light bulbs were on. These houses and these people felt so strange to me. I wondered if they were happy at their homes if they wanted to live somewhere else. These thoughts made me feel a little bit sad. I realized that I would never want to change my life or my family or even my house, even if I was going to live in the best house with best family in the best part of the city. When I was a child I knew exactly who I am and never wanted to be someone else.  As the time went by I lost that feeling of self-identity. By seeing other people having more than I did, doing better than I did I felt somehow jealous and tried to be someone different. I wanted to do things I wouldn’t ever dare to do and never did actually. I lost myself and felt unhappy.

Trying to run after things and people I never needed in my life I never saw and appreciated people and things I already had. And one winter evening I remembered the child I was the thoughts I had and who I wanted to be.  That was it, I understood t finally!

 We try so hard to look at the others and be like others that we often forget who we are and what we need and what we want in this life. If all of us were doing the same things and having the same goals and being equally successful then life would probably lose its meaning. We wouldn’t be so excited meeting new people knowing about their lives, we wouldn’t create stories, wouldn’t dream, imagine…. We simply wouldn’t differ.

Just look at the child you know, or look at the children playing in the backyard! They are so happy and careless just because they never pretend being someone else, they are simple and open you can read them like a book. They say what they think and express what they feel. Their love is true and friendship is real. They are pure, they are different!