Like many, I don't remember all of the details from my childhood. There are, however, a few incidents I remember vividly. Like the time I threw my mother's shoulder pads out of the car window - which nearly caused an accident, mind you! - that's quite clear in my memory. I also remember having quite a strange overprotective - slash possessive - attachment to my mum. Something like a reversed case of the Oedipus complex where you feel like your dad is competing with you for your mother's attention.
Anyway.
One thing I can clearly recall is my insatiable thirst to try out new things. I guess it was quite a nuisance to my parents - never tried to ask...don't intend to either! - but I had this habit of wanting to try new things as soon as I learned of their existence. For instance, I remember that in Grade One, I was lucky enough to be cast as one of the main parts in the traditional annual nativity play at school. BUT as soon as the teacher uttered the term 'choir' - which consisted of all the girls without a main role in the play - I immediately raised my hand to be part of it. I had no idea what a choir was but it sounded 'new'. I've always had a weakness for anything 'new' and 'upcoming'. A restless child eventually turned into an even more restless young woman.
Now even though I feel like I learned so many things because I was drawn to their 'novelty', there are still a couple of things I always wanted to learn but never got the opportunity to do so.
The first, riding a bike. I'm nowhere near embarrassed of not being able to drive a car, but not knowing to ride a bike is a tad blush-inducing. Technically, I never really got around doing it because I was informally forbidden to do so. 'Oh no, they'll get hurt!'. That's what my dad always claimed as soon as we even dared to propose the idea. I did learn to ride a scooter though...even though there was a whole 'Mission Impossible' inspired adventure behind buying one in the first place. I'll tell you about that another time.
Secondly, learning to play basketball properly. If you've known for a while you'd know that my dad was in the Maltese national basketball team - and he constantly reminds us of it too - so I felt like everyone around me expected me to be the next basketball prodigy. Well, I didn't. To make matters worse, we always played basketball during PE lessons at school so I couldn't really avoid it. When things couldn't get worse, they did. My sister grew up to be really good at basketball, something which made me look like the only non-basketball talented member of the family. I always felt like my failure to play properly was almost self-inflicted. You know, one of those situations where you feel so pressured to do something right you instantly block yourself from doing it because of all the effort.
Third. I really wanted to learn to play the harp. And the violin. But the harp mostly. Call me weird, but when I was around six or seven, I believed I was a fairy. Nothing would make me believe otherwise. I had my little magical powers - safely stored in my jewellery box on the dressing table - and I also imagined a tiny jingle in my head whenever I performed my pretty spells. My musical jingles always featured harp-played mini tunes, so when I grew older I always dreamt I could play those songs on the instrument itself. Harps are so otherworldly. They're like magic. They're the glitter of the musical world. The closest I ever got to playing a harp was when I chose the 'harp' filter on my dad's synthesiser. Oh well.
I could end this post dramatically by saying that I wish I learned how tough life would be as a grown up, but I won't. Oh wait, I just did.
