Nostalgia destroys everything.
I'll be honest - some days I just don't feel like I have anything to write here. These are days when nothing particularly exciting has happened to me, or the things that have happened just won't translate to the written (web)page. On days like these, I try to think back in life, think of something interesting.
One of my earliest memories is of being 4 years old, living in Wool(we'd recently left Scotland) and coming home from playgroup to a nap. I've not asked around or checked in any parenting literature, but I feel pretty safe in assuming that most other kids of that age get after-noon naps too. Even if it's not the usual 'done thing', I don't begrudge me mam making me take one. She was a single parent, and could do with a break, I'm sure.
My bedroom at the time was slightly smaller than the one I'm in now - barely big enough for a single bed. It was so small, in fact, that the bed folded up into the wall when not in use. To this day I maintain that this small, space-saving method is one of the most under-used ideas in the history of the world, and one of the more ingenious inventions of the 20th Century. Everyone else I've spoken to seems to think it's a bit tacky, and smacks of 'poor'. I shall not be moved.
We'd just eaten scrambled eggs, or at least my sister had. I had repeatedly asked for scrambled eggs, fervent in my belief that they were flat, yellow in the middle with white around the edge. I waited in the living room whilst Mum made them in the kitchen, and immediately burst into tears upon learning that I had requested the very kind of eggs I hated. Clearly, I had meant fried eggs. I was too young to understand that Mum was not psychic, and got increasingly angry. At one point I may have beaten my hands and fists upon the ground - the memory grows fuzzy.
At any rate, my sister finished her eggs, and I was told that I could go to bed without lunch. That was fine with me - Mum could make me lie down in my room all she wanted, but she couldn't make me go to sleep. I didn't want to waste time even then, and the idea of staying awake was delicious. I'd be able to play with toys in my room, and get revenge on my mother for making the wrong eggs. It was the perfect crime.
I remember lying in bed and counting to a thousand to keep myself awake, desperate to keep my mind doing something so that sleep wouldn't take me. Mum had tucked me in tightly(after folding the bed down from the wall) and even if I had gotten out of bed, my toys were all on the floor - covered by a bed too heavy for me to lift.
I got up to 700, I'm sure. I was very proud of doing that, and focused very hard on picturing the number in my head so that I wouldn't lose my place. I was so... pleased with myself - I was staying awake and accomplishing things. Counting that far! Can you imagine?
Then I looked at the curtains. Normally brown, they glowed a bright orange in the after-noon sun. It was re-assuring, somehow, the soft warmth of the sun's rays relaxing me. The dust floating in the light gave my eyes little visual treats to play with. The "700" tumbled out of my mind. My thumb went to my mouth. My eyes fluttered closed. I fell asleep.