I am a little person. I am new to the world as I have been here for only three years and already its sights and fancies are beginning to amaze me. I have already been introduced to a new feeling which people around me call “fear”.
My first experience of this new feeling came when I learnt that my mother, the person who I was most used to seeing around me for all these years of my life, was soon going to be replaced by several unknown or not so familiar people in unfamiliar surroundings. One day I was dressed and fed and led to a new place so much more different from my home. I met many new faces which though smiling didn’t look at all like the loving face of my mother. I was told that this was “School”.
I learnt later that this was where I would have to spend a substantial part of my life. As my mother’s smiling visage disappeared behind the iron gates, I wondered why she smiled while I suffered so much.
Just as I felt fear at losing my mother for what I thought would be forever, I also learnt to replace her presence with new relationships which I came to learn were called “friends”. These were little people who just like me were equally scared to be there. Somehow we learnt to spend time with each other and share our sorrows.
I now knew that life had more waiting for me. I began to discover new toys and learnt new ways to play with them. I realized school only created a temporary gap between me and my mother only to be filled in by friends. I learnt to live with that separation and enjoyed being with my friends.
My days grew busier. As my mother rushed around in the morning to get me all dressed and ready for the school bus, she constantly looked up at a big round thing hanging on our walls. I learnt that I too needed to time my activities to the ticking of that big round thing. It featured in my school books and my teacher pointed at it and phonetically pronounced it to be the CL-O-CK. I was to learn later that things in my life were to be completely controlled by its meticulous ticking.
I am a little person. My world is just beginning to form. Every day it is being filled with new things, new words and new feelings. Every day my world grows a little bit more and so do I; till finally I realize I am no longer awed by life. I realize I have grown up.
I do not feel wonderment in the things that I see as I have seen them several times before. I do not learn new things as I believe my cup of learning is overflowing. I realize I miss my childhood. I miss the bewildering moments of discovering new things. I no longer experience the joy in identifying new feelings.
How I wish, I could start growing up all over again. Experience the desire to learn and to love anew.
How I wish I could live all over again!
