It was on a chilly afternoon when I'd woken up from a deep nap. It was the room where my grandparents now live. That room never had anything that was too personal, maybe that's why the naps there always felt so refreshing. In my head, that room was always considered the nap room, or the room where you sleep when you fall sick, since it was on the ground floor; more accessible and closer to the kitchen.
Earlier that morning, mummy and I were at my school collecting my books for the approaching year, she met my teachers and was just as excited as I for entering the first grade. When I woke up, I saw my mom laying restfully right next to me and my brother laying with his head on mummy's leg. It felt so warm, the layered, grey, translucent curtains allowed just the right rays of sun to make it feel so cozy and light. The bedsheet felt the right amount of worn-out for it to feel soft and known, to feel like it had been there on so many such days. It was so crisply chilly, like an afternoon in late December, yet I later realised it was the air conditioner my mom turned on while I was asleep.
After a lot of talking and giggling, I was brought back to the fact that first grade was going to start soon. In that moment I told them it was difficult for me to believe it. I don't remember what felt so grand about it, it just felt like I was stepping into something exciting and unknown. What I do remember is that right after I told them, a thought occurred to me, "what if I'm still sleeping, and this is a dream and I'm still in K2? What if there's still 500 days left for me to get to first grade?"
Now when I look back, I envy the deep sleep I used to get in that room which made me feel so out of touch with everything that was going on. It used to take me half an hour of laying in bed, and a cup full of milk with Complan to completely wake from after-school my naps. I'm currently writing this at 5 in the morning, knowing full well that the sleep I'm going to get after this wouldn't be enough, and that I'd be waking in some guilt, but that's another thing altogether.
I, sometimes wonder if I'm still in that sleep. If I'm going to wake up in the next minute with my mother on my side, and my brother laying, resting his head over her leg. If I'm going to start first grade after the coming week. If I'm going to go shopping for a bigger size of my uniform and school shoes, both whites and blacks. If I'm going to go crazy over all of the colourful pencils (mostly pink), shapy sharpeners, or the strawberry erasers that I would be carrying in my new box. If I'm going to tell mummy to pack me more of my favourite snacks so that I get enough before my classmates finished the rest. Or have I really lived all of it already? Have I really lived it or just passed it? Have I lost the joy of the little things I had, have, or could have? Or was it just way too exciting as a kid? When did it stop being so exciting, why did it stop?
I want to feel excited to use my new pencils. I want to sharpen them and use them all day, and then walk up to the dustbin with two handfuls of shavings that I'd been collecting throughout the day, over my table. I want to admire the colourful shavings on my desk because eventhough they're supposed to be thrown, they come from my new pencils and still feel special. I want to feel the satisfaction of using my brand new pencils enough while I'm finally disposing the shavings. I want to come home and tell mummy all about how much I wrote and how I already used half of my pencil today, and that with this pace I'd be needing a new pack by the end of next month. I want to be excited to go shop for those pencils, and later be confused choosing among all of the poppy colours that catch me, yet come home with another pack of my staple pinks.
- Sherrill Sejpal, 20
(wrote this with a lot of simplicity, something that I've been loving lately, also thinking of how my 6 year old self would've talked about it)
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