cherry

so, in short: there are many of my friends who have emailed me or called me or left me messages in the past few weeks and i simply haven't responded. it's awful and i have no idea how to make it up to them/you (i know some of you are reading this). it wouldn't be so bad if i could promise it won't happen again, but i can't.

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the explosion that destroyed our city, erased our homes and transformed our fields into wastelands is nothing compared to what is now happening to those who survived. - 65 days of static.

i sometimes think back to my childhood and adolescent years and wonder how i knew the things i did. i am of the belief that i grew up beyond my years. in a way i was forced to with the pressures of being the eldest sister of many. i was cooking meals before most people are even allowed out on the streets alone. [i cooked my first "dinner" for my sisters when i was barely eight].

it is only now, as an adult, that i realise the magnitude of this and how it has shaped my world. i look at children who are that young and the great difference between them and i at that age is clear to me .



it is for this reason that i think i identify (or can at least converse about "the way things were") with those that are 3-5 years older than me. it might not even be a blip on the timeline of the world, but when discussing culture, history and even politics in such a volatile time as between the early 80s and now it is evident the difference those years can make.

i have always been afraid of nuclear war, of atom bombs and all the destruction that can accompany them. it was while watching my dearest play the game fallout that i realised that i am one of the only people of my "age group" (i.e. 26 and younger) that remembers what it was like to be brought up with the very real danger of the Cold War.



i remember the leaflets, the pamphlets, the television warnings and many of the headlines from the mid 80s. my parents were afraid of the atom bomb and so was i. it turns out that i'm an incredibly observant being and was always attuned to the "goings on" in the world. other people i have spoken to that are my age barely recall the advertisements for bomb shelters and their neighbours digging very huge holes in their back gardens; i do.

it was more real than any other memory i have, and all i have to do is discuss the fear with those of my friends that are that tiny bit older than i and it all falls into place.



it is for this (and many other reasons) that i am glad i was brought up "beyond my years". i remember being nine years old and my mother telling a stranger on holiday how i was nine going on ninety. at the time i was embarrassed and ashamed of my clear lack of childhood.** in my late teens i was even resentful of my mother for enforcing adult chores on me and of the world for making me aware of all the things children are supposed to be oblivious to.

** incidentally this was also the age i entered "womanhood" with my first menstrual cycle. i think the world really did have a plan for me.

now, i am almost in my very real mid-to-late-twenties and i am grateful for everything that has shaped me into the adult i am now. now i can find the time to behave like the child i yearned to be. i am always watchful of the time, ever aware that the world is ready to bring me back to adulthood with a swift slap in the face.



i can laugh and i can play but there'll always be the things adults are afraid of. sometimes i still wish my fears were as trivial as a bogeyman in the wardrobe. one day i'll let my children have those fears for me, when they are ready to grow up, they will and i hope one day they'll turn around and think "i am who i am because the world made it so".

still, i look around and think of how the western world seems to have forgotten the fear of the a-bomb. it is almost as if Hiroshima, Nagasaki and the Cold War never happened. in a time when terms such as "weapons of mass destruction" are bandied about i wonder if anyone remembers what it was really like to be afraid.