Memory...

I was studying about this today in psychology. But this actually has nothing to do with my lecture. Or my scary mad lecturer. I was talking to Gary, he's from the town I lived in when I was very little. And he mentioned something about it, and I had suddenly remembered this really dodgy thing.

We lived in a very small house back in Wisbech. You'd walk though the front door to the hall way, on the right was a kitchen, straight on was the living room. From the living room you could walk straight out onto the garden. The staircase was in the living room, right by the doorway to outside. Up the stairs, there was no landing, it went straight onto the bedroom. The only bedroom. Cross the bedroom, and you'd go into the bathroom. And that was it; 4 rooms and a hallway. Before we moved, there were 6 of us living there. Mum, dad, me, my two sisters and my brother. Me and one of my sisters shared a bunkbed under the window in the bedroom. My other sister and brother had cots, in the same room. Mum and dad slept in the living room. It wasn't exactly ideal. All the houses on the Close were the same, however they weren't family homes. The couple one side nextdoor were childless. The other side was an old couple, who we came to know as "Nanny&Grandad-nextdoor". And despite how it wasn't good for us living there, it was somewhere I had gotten used to.

When I first found out we were moving house, I was excited, as though it was some kind of adventure. I told all my friends, and even at that age I thought we would be friends forever, staying in contact with them always. But that never happened. Honestly, I wouldn't even be able to tell you most of their names right now. School for that one year was good. The library was in a tower block. Or at least you had to go up some stairs, when I was that little it may have just seemed like a tower. In the playground there was a wooden ship to play on, which I remember really liking. I don't think I realised that moving house and school actually meant leaving that place behind.

But that's not quite the important part I remembered...

After we'd packed up and we were leaving our house for the final time, and we were driving on the main road towards Lynn. We only had a few personal stuff in the car with us. And by personal, I mean I had a colouring book and a doll with me. My siblings had other such stuff with them. We we just going down the road and I remember realising we were going to be living in a different place and thinking "now I'm going to have to remember a new way of getting to nanny and grandad's if I want to run away". I had perfectly remembered the route from our house to nanny and grandad's in case I ever wanted to leave home for some reason and stay with them instead. This was 3 months before I turned 5 years old.

Thinking back like that, makes me realise that my family life never seems to have been perfect. I mean, how could it have been if I was already wanting to run away at such a young age? I quickly did learn the new route to their house, and indeed to my other grandparents as well. I actually was pleased that we now seemed to be closer to them, so when I did run away it wouldn't be so far for me to run. In my naiveness I did believe that running away involved me having to run the whole way, so being closer seemed very good to me.

That random thought just kinda scared me I guess...

xxx