While my New York friend (well, formerly a New Yorker) and I went around the city with my new friend (and her sister) two talked with fun reminiscence of their earlier days, back in Abu Dhabi, back when they were so young that a boy could get into a pillow fight with a girl. I must say, I quite enjoyed all of those conversations. In the end, though, I got to wondering, "Where was I?" Where was I when my friends were having so much fun? How many of them did I even know, back then? It was, at first, saddening, then sobering, in that I remembered that the circumstances back then (which I will not get into) did not allow my parents much time to socialize with their friends, which is why I did not grow up playing with the kids of their friends.
Perhaps I should not complain, however: I must remember that much as I like to complain that my Mom did not take me to her friends places, and did not have them over, much (resulting in my having only very limited experiences of actually socializing with people my own age), the fact is, it was my Mom whom I am grateful to (and very rightly) that I even have friends. I must never forget that it was she (along with an almost equal commitment, effort, and perseverance) who even made me have friends, in the first place. It was she who I have to thank for my first friend, for by the time that I started kindergarten I did not want to make friends, anymore.
You see, I was born in Bangladesh, in a small town called Pabna, and almost everyone around me was part of the family. Everyone, of course, knew that I would eventually go, with my Mom, to Abu Dhabi (in the United Arab Emirates) to live with my Dad, before I started school. So, every once in a while my cousins on my Mother's side would say something like "You're a foreigner! You'll go away!" While they saw it as a privilege (people back home see living abroad as having the good life), their words, along with my not feeling welcome around my paternal cousins, made me feel like people just wanted me to go away. I actually felt unwanted, and when my maternal cousins said anything about me being a foreigner, it really hurt. Of course, I was very fond of my maternal cousins (and one particular paternal cousin -- probably because he was closest to me, in age), and while when making the final preparations for my travel to the United Emirates, in Dhaka, I was too caught up in the excitement to think about how much I would miss them (nor did I think about how close I had gotten to the family members in Dhaka), when I finally got to the airport it hit me, slowly, that I was actually going to go away; much as my Father had gone away from us using the same airport, a few years earlier. Well, the realization had not fully sunk in yet. Some time after my arrival in Abu Dhabi, and I am not sure at what point (since I was still very excited that I would finally be starting school, much as I had seen my elder cousins go to school), I realized that I did not have most of the people I considered familiar, any more. Perhaps the problem was exacerbated by my depression (I am saying perhaps, because I am not too sure at what point I started getting depressed, though I think that happened after a little tantrum I threw at my Dad during my early days -- not that I ever told anyone about the depression), but I soon came to the conclusion that whoever I meet will, at some point, GO AWAY! It didn't matter how close this person was (like the cousins who lived next door to me), or how much we had in common (like the similar aged cousins from other towns), or how much fun this person was (like the cousins who came from Dhaka), or how insanely fond I was of this person (like the person who bought me candy and ice cream), they were ALL going to GO AWAY!
So, as far as I was concerned, if I were to make a new association, it would only be to break up, some time down the line; and I did not like this break up bit, so I just did not want to meet anyone. Whenever I met a new person the first thing I would wonder would be "...at what point will this person, too, go away?" So, I think it was very instrumental of my Mom to actually force me to make my first friend. The guy, very conveniently, lived in the same building, and we met when waiting for our school transportation to arrive (yes, we went to the same school). My Mom, and Dad, were very adamant that I socialize with the guy, that I ask how he was doing, that I ask what he was up to, that I visit him, and have him over, that I find activities that we have in common, even when we (my friend and I) did not see eye to eye with each other. I suppose I should be very grateful to my Mom and Dad that I eventually got comfortable enough with the guy to not ask him at what point he was going to go away; and I eventually got comfortable enough around new people to start making friends with the people I went to school with. Incidentally, this first friend of mine, and my closest, for MANY, MANY years, was the first of any of the school mates with whom I was more than just acquainted with, was the first my friends to actually leave. He left, with his family, for his home town in Pakistan, when I was somewhere around Grade 6; though my memory of the exact time is hazy, because there was a six month gap between my finishing my 6th Grade, and starting my 7th (school transfer reasons). That was the only time, that I really remembered my old thought: "When is this person, too, going to go away?"
I have fond memories (they're fond, now) of how much care my parents took in making sure my friend and I always found things to do that we both liked (I think we were rather different personalities -- I liked climbing door frames, while my friend liked to read story books, I liked to read about science, while my friend liked to watch music videos on TV, I liked to listen to the news, while my friend considered it something for adults, and so on, and so forth), how much care they took in making sure that I did not let my frustration at not having someone who shared my interest in Star Trek, 3-2-1 Contact, and the movie Moonraker, explode. They took a lot of care to make sure that I reciprocated the same kindness that I received from my friend's family. My parents shaped me into a social animal -- they molded me into a human being. For these reasons, I think, I should just accept that my parents did the best they could to make sure I did socialize when I was a kid. While I have the gripe that they only ever went to this one friend's house, while this friend had his social interactions with multiple friends, I should learn to put up with the fact that my parents did not get the opportunity to socialize too much, themselves, and they chose to put their free time (my Dad used to get home from work at 2200) to socialize with a family that we got very close to.
Perhaps it is even a good thing that my first friend was not like me. You see, when I was around 3 years of age I got shot with an airgun pellet (accidentally, of course, by a cousin) and when I used to go to play, during my formative years (back when I was in Bangladesh), some times I would be asked by the other kids about the dent in my head, and the shooting (word get around in a small town). While I would talk about it, I did not really like being spoken to about it, and I eventually became reclusive, and withdrawn. So, perhaps it was better for me that my friend was not as oriented towards facts (hey, he liked fiction) so I never actually got to talking to him about the gunshot, at least not too much. Perhaps this is why I did not become more reclusive than I already was, while in the Emirates. Maybe being around that friend all the time helped me keep my mind off of the topic; though I have thought about it every day, since it happened, till today, and it is perhaps for this reason that my memory of it is still crimson fresh. Who knows? Maybe I would have gotten more self absorbed, had I not had a friend whose interests, relative to mine, were so off? Maybe having friends with similar interests would have helped, for then I would have been more involved in activities in which I could loose myself (I was always into activities that required me to live in the moment, where one slip could end in a fall). We may never know. Come to think of it, when it comes to the guys with whom I used to go cycling (I liked to do jumps, and navigate without touching the handle bars -- and I STILL wake up from nightmares when the drop from a jump is longer than expected, resulting in me feeling the zero g, though the craving of that feeling drives me to jump from higher and higher; I guess Garrett Soden was right is saying that it "can feel like rapture, it can feel like rape"), the sport was all that I had in common with them. Other than that, we did not have much in common (different preferences in TV shows, etc.). While I got along very well with my bikers' gang I eventually lost touch with them when I loved to a new location (some time around Grade 6) -- thinking back on this, I never, once, remembered the firing when I was actually around them, so having them was a very good thing; maybe I need to loose myself, in order to catch myself. My first friend, on the other hand, was someone with whom I did not diminish contact with, no matter who moved to a new location -- something I have to give my parents credit for -- and I have to credit his parents. Just writing this, of course, I am missing my old biking gang, differences and all; though, somehow, I still feel a lot closer to that first friend, with whom I had (and probably still have) more differences. I am not too sure if this closeness is due to our sharing the same religious festivals, or the fact that I perceived him as being more respectful of my folks, though I strongly suspect it is the latter.
Come to think of it, now, I did not have THAT bad a childhood. I may have become introverted enough, from my experiences of being asked about getting shot at (though I very much LIKE talking about it now, and spare no opportunity to talk about it); I may have missed out on varied social experiences with people from my own culture, owing to the limited time that my parents had to socialize (though that situation changed, dramatically, though not completely, past Grade 6); I may have become too absorbed in the hard sciences, and too aloof from fun social interactions, owing to a lack of the latter, but I guess that let me put up with the pains that my circumstances during my college life put me through (I used to loose sleep over nightmares, and this happened consistently for years; I still have pains, but they are project related) [though, I must admit, I feel severe pains, and I get depressed over not being able to make light of situations, like my friends can; and not being able to crack jokes out of the blue, and devilishly put a person on the spot, just for the fun of it]; I may have missed the opportunities to play with the kids who shared the same TV interests as me, the same religious festivals as me, the same level of obedience to a friend's folks, as me, the same interest in video games as me, interest in the same telecast sports as me, the same interest in football (soccer, if you are American) as me, the same interest in food, as me, the same interest in going out, as me, interest in the same kinds of toys, facts (be it general knowledge, specific branches of science, or just, plain, news categories), but you know what? I got to play with kids who enjoyed bicycling around the neighborhood, and more importantly, exploring the underground scaffolding that went into the renovations of the nearby roads (yes, we played 'follow the leader'), and that is something that none of the kids with whom I had so much in common with actually did. So, I got to play with kids who were risk takers, like I was.
So, overall, after all the give and take, my growing up was not that bad, at all. I may not have had experiences that most kids take for granted, but I did stuff that most kids did not do. Maybe I have something to offer society, from that. Time will tell. Sooner, or later, time will tell. [Yeah, I'm still a big fan of Hell March, from the first Red Alert, from Westwood Studios].
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My story, here, does not extend beyond the 6th Grade., because after this my life changed dramatically, in the realm of socializing.
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