My childhood friend and all the times she traumatised me
My oldest friend is finally coming to visit me in Iceland (it has been 20 years, Judith...). This is a good opportunity to talk about all the times she traumatised me when we were children. A bit of background. We are from the same village and became friends in kindergarten. Her father is a teacher and she always was more aware of things than me. As a kid, I used to live in my own world far away from reality. When we started primary school we would walk home together. This is when we had our "deep" conversations, and this is when she would tell me sone hard and traumatising truths.
1. The world has no end I do not really know why we talked about it, maybe because of some movie we saw, but even though I knew the world was round, travelling to the end of the world was such a common story telling trope that I never realised it is not a thing in the real world. A bit of magic vanished from the world for me that day.
2. The world can end any time I have no idea where she got that from or what she even meant by that. In my (hazy) memory she just blurted it out and then walked away. I did not sleep for days.
3. Germany started both world wars We had just started to learn about the horrors of the world wars in school (I think 3rd or 4th grade). Complete with a movie about Auschwitz, which for some reason I was not traumatised by (who shows this kind of movie to 9 year olds? My teachers were hardcore). I think the footage was to grainy to register as real to me. I generally seemed to have paid little attention to class that day, because it was my friend who informed me that Germany had started both world wars. I was horrified, it was my own private "are we the baddies?" moment.
4. "Are you also scared there will be a third world war?" It must have been some time after the above. The first Iraq war (90-91) had just started. I had not really been aware of what was going on, I was to young to pay attention to the new, but my friend must have heard something from her parents. I remember being really scared through all the winter holidays.
Revenge:
I got back at her. When I was six or seven I stayed over in her place and peed in the bed we both slept in (accidentally). She remembers none of the above, but this is burned in her memory.
I also teased her about being afraid to jump from the 3m and 5m diving board in swim class. She always wanted to be "Ronja Robbers Daughter" when we played together (because she has dark black hair like her), so I had to be Birk, which bugged me. Not because he is a boy, but because Ronja is the main protagonist. So I told her that she needs to be brave enough to jump from the diving board if she wants to be Ronja. She did not talk to me for days until I apologised. I was a bit of a bitch when I was a kid.
1. The world has no end I do not really know why we talked about it, maybe because of some movie we saw, but even though I knew the world was round, travelling to the end of the world was such a common story telling trope that I never realised it is not a thing in the real world. A bit of magic vanished from the world for me that day.
2. The world can end any time I have no idea where she got that from or what she even meant by that. In my (hazy) memory she just blurted it out and then walked away. I did not sleep for days.
3. Germany started both world wars We had just started to learn about the horrors of the world wars in school (I think 3rd or 4th grade). Complete with a movie about Auschwitz, which for some reason I was not traumatised by (who shows this kind of movie to 9 year olds? My teachers were hardcore). I think the footage was to grainy to register as real to me. I generally seemed to have paid little attention to class that day, because it was my friend who informed me that Germany had started both world wars. I was horrified, it was my own private "are we the baddies?" moment.
4. "Are you also scared there will be a third world war?" It must have been some time after the above. The first Iraq war (90-91) had just started. I had not really been aware of what was going on, I was to young to pay attention to the new, but my friend must have heard something from her parents. I remember being really scared through all the winter holidays.
Revenge:
I got back at her. When I was six or seven I stayed over in her place and peed in the bed we both slept in (accidentally). She remembers none of the above, but this is burned in her memory.
I also teased her about being afraid to jump from the 3m and 5m diving board in swim class. She always wanted to be "Ronja Robbers Daughter" when we played together (because she has dark black hair like her), so I had to be Birk, which bugged me. Not because he is a boy, but because Ronja is the main protagonist. So I told her that she needs to be brave enough to jump from the diving board if she wants to be Ronja. She did not talk to me for days until I apologised. I was a bit of a bitch when I was a kid.