Baubles Fit For Kings

I really had to scratch my brain for this one.

I'm what people call a kid, pretty much.

At that strange stage between the point childhood ends and adulthood begins...?

I don't like how at eighteen, everyone seems to act as if some magical flip has switched and we are suddenly "adults".

But I'll be flipping that switch in a couple of weeks, don't think I'll see myself in adulthood till I'm in my twenties or thirties though.

Anyway, I really had to think about this.

My father came from a less well-off family and lived in the village.

He took care of his siblings, did photography, sold sachet water and fruits, all from a really young age.

My mother never needed to do any of that, her father was an army man and a rich enough one at that.

And then, there's me.

Both worked hard and because of them, I've never really known the pains and pleasures of hard labour.

My father moreso, because of the past he had.

All that working is part of the reason a distance has grown between us, now.

One holiday, we were playing around making necklaces we wouldn't even wear and my mother decided that if we made enough, she'd sell them and give us the profit.

So my twin and I worked pretty hard, through the entire holiday.

Slipping that small string through that small hole, perched in bed and not using our phones for once.

I think she was more pleased we were doing something else that seemed productive than about the beads themselves.

For some reason, we made some real bank on those beads.

Imagine a child making necklaces and getting paid so much.

Maybe she was trying to teach us the dignity of good hard work and how it reaps rewards... Not sure capitalism would completely agree with her on that.

I did have fun, that holiday.

It was a nice break, a nice little blip of time between the years of cracking under pressure where I felt a strange sense of comfort hunched down, messing up my back as I do now with my phone, staring intensely with pure frustration at times as I tried to loop on another bead.

I would say I'd like to go back but I don't remember enough of my life to tell you whether I actually enjoyed it or not.

All I know is that, for once, my brain latched on to the positive feelings rather than the negative and I'm rather lucky I remember it at all.

Work seems a negative thing for most and I'll be doing that too, quite soon, once all the drag of studies is done.

Maybe I'll look back and miss this part.

If things were better, perhaps I'd believe that to be true.

My inner child still clings to hope.

May life get better for us all.