Forthnights

Just something interesting to share…..

I found it so strange, sleeping on an elevated platform. I felt restricted by the small size of it (actually, I was still small at 11, but when you compare a single bed to the entire floor, it is a step down!). I tossed and turn in bed, and I was so afraid I would fall off. Many nights, I would just go back to my old habit and sleep on the floor. The next morning, my father would ask why I was sleeping on the floor instead of the bed. I guess I wasn’t quite used to such luxuries yet.

I don’t really know why, but when I was growing up, my parents never saw the need to buy a bed for my brother and I, but I don’t think it was because they were trying to go Japanese. I think the real reason was the money. After all, my brother and I grew up playing second hand toys, but most of the time, we made our own, out of paper, and our imagination.

I grew up knowing not to ask for this and that from my parents. We knew that my father didn’t earn much. When I was in primary school, my mother would give the 2 of us some buns to eat for break time. I always wanted to go to the canteen to buy all the mouth watering food served, but always ended up eating plain, boring cream bread. On days where she did give us pocket money, it was 40cents.

40 cents! I’m rich! I’d jump for joy when I did get to buy food in the canteen instead. With 40cents, I could buy rice, with curry. But it was just that.. plain rice… and curry sauce… no meat, no vegetables. What did you expect right? Still, it was better than eating bread……

Suddenly, at 11 years old, brought into my father’s home, I got to see what it was like living a slightly more comfortable life. TV with VCR (those days it was still tape!), Hifi set, computer, an actual study table (never had one of those too), and of course, a bed….. I found the study table such a new concept too. Wow, you have drawers to put your things inside! You get to stack books on the shelf, you get to stick your pencil in the cool pencil holder. Growing up, we just did our homework on the floor.

When we went out, it was to the nicer places to eat; Less street side food, more restaurants. Shopping was free for all; grab what you want, just make sure you use it. It took some getting used to. After all, I never remembered going shopping like that before. With my mother last time, meals were planned ahead, grocery list were made and followed. My father and his wife went to Carrefour, and just bought things as they came, or as they saw.

I stayed with him and my step mother for 7 years; from 11 years old all the way till I was 17. By that time, I was pretty much used to it. My father had taken up another wife, and he was one week here, one week there. So I spent most of the time with my step mother. Mostly, I ran my life the way I saw fit. My step mother was also a working lady, and since the both of them were seldom around, I ran my life the way I saw fit. Unlike my friends who had parents hounding them constantly, I had a free hand to do whatever I wanted. I could have been smoking pot at home from 10a.m to 3p.m everyday and no one would even know. Of course, I didn’t. While friends around me we complaining about their parents, eager to break free, to rebel and just do what they want, I found myself in very different shoes. I was very loosely supervised, and I was given generous pocket money by a teenagers standards. I had a room of my own, had the house to myself during the day, and had no curfew at night. The only thing required of me was to inform whoever’s at home about my whereabouts. Often, a simple note on the fridge, or a brief phone call was enough. But 17 was also around the time of my fathers fall from grace.

His wife (the one I was living with) left him, and he was stuck with this current one, and being the blood sucker that she is, my father never did provide for us as well as he used to be. To be fair, he has been unemployed for a long time. He was doing business with his wife, selling food. But the proceeds of that business always went to the wife first. We stood by the sides, scavenging whatever my father could give us. That was 4 years ago. I am now 21, about to graduate in a year.

Maybe you wonder why I started talking about sleeping on beds in the beginning. Simply because, the first bed that I had remains the only bed I have. It is right behind me as I write this; the same bed that I first slept in when I was 11. Of course, I’m a lot bigger now. I moved 4 times from 11 to 17 years old, and this bed came with me every time. It’s so worn out, it could break anytime, and we have talked many times of changing beds, but again, because of money, we never did. After all, it was still working fine. When my girlfriend first came over to my place to sleep, she said she couldn’t sleep. I had laid out a mattress for her on the floor. On the contrary, she told me that she had only slept on beds all her life, and found it hard to sleep on the floor.

I don’t know if its anything significant saying all this. Many of the things people take for granted growing up, I never had; in this case, a bed, a study table, and a room of my own. The same study table from 10 years ago is of course next door, in my mother’s room, and the bed is with me.

Sometimes, they remind me of how different things have changed, how far I have come. To see something exactly the same as it was 10 years ago only makes the contrast of things stronger. It gets me down memory lane.

When I first slept on it, my feet couldn’t touch the end of the bed.
Now, my feet jut out of the end.

When I first slept in that bed, I was still being told to brush my teeth and wash my feet before going to bed.
Now, I tell my mother to brush her teeth and wash her feet before going to bed.

When I first slept in that bed, I preferred sleeping on the floor, but I was overwhelmed by the luxury of it.
Now, I still prefer sleeping on the floor. The bed squeaks.

posted by Compulsive Blogger @ 12:59 am Comments: 1