The Nostalgia

A couple of years ago the definition of “nostalgia” involved just longing for a homeland. It has changed because the wheel turns and also words have been changing. Even dictionaries have included a new definition of this word. To sum up, nostalgia is longing for a home country or some period of our life. I think that all of us have a significant periods of life even if someone is not longing for them. I feel nostalgic when I think about my childhood and primary school time. Generally, I have nostalgia for the nineties and beginning of the twenty-first century. I will focus on my primary school.

School time

Matthew, David, Nicholas, Bart, Tom and I constituted the best bunch of friends. We had known each other since reception class. We could say we were as thick as thieves. The first years of primary school were calm. We played like normal children from those years. After lessons and during breaks between them, we often played football, but we didn’t have a ball. We played with a crushed tin. When a tin was crushed, we started to play. Instead of normal goals, we used our backpacks. We played football, but it wasn’t a significant thing. We could make something out of nothing. It is a gist. Obviously, we commuted the tin for a ball over time and we were playing serious football games. In winter we used to go on the hillock nearby our school. We glissaded or used our backpacks to drive down. Yes, we didn’t have waterproof backpacks. All of our books and notebooks were wet, but the joy was wonderful. Parents weren’t glad. When we were older, sometimes we were really rude. I remember we pushed a wheelbarrow and a bucket of water through the stairs in the school’s basement. The wheelbarrow was dropped and the water from the bucket was tipped. Then we realised we were the last class in the school. It was 5:30 PM and all of classes finished lessons before. A mistake was made. We had to run for cover but we knew we should have got to the classroom. Furthermore, we knew we have got a problem. A teacher and superintendent waited for us. The school principal paged our parents and we had got a big problem. In summer we stayed outside everyday. Even sometimes we didn’t come back home for dinner. We didn’t have mobile phones and our parents didn’t know where we were. My friends and I mostly played football, basketball or played games like hare and hounds.

Bread, toast and cigarettes

When we were teenagers we liked going to a bakery at night. Of course, it was close but we knew where we had to knock. There was a window behind a bakery. If someone knocked, the baker opened the door. Perhaps you will not believe, but one hot loaf of bread cost 1 zl. We were walking through the town and we were eating the hot bread. One day David got a sandwich toaster, and then we bought one kilogram of cheese and we made delicious sandwiches. I remember that smell to date. My friends and I tried first cigarettes when we were sixteen. We smoked through sticks behind garages. Thanks to sticks our hands didn’t smell. We were really stupid.

Adulthood

All those years we stuck together. All children were equal. We didn’t know what ostracism or mental abuse were. Moreover, we were sometimes rude, but we didn’t wrong anyone.

The majority of children came from an average family. We didn’t have a lot of money and nobody fancied airs. I miss those times. I lack this carelessness, easy life, confidence in people and honest smiles on our faces. We are adults and I know that life is not easy, but if we lost confidence in people, the joy of life and our smiles will be not honest, our life will be sad and grey. Each and every one of us should cherish a child who is in us.