Everyone has things they have done in their lives that they look back on and think that they are lucky to survive or, to be less melodramatic, things that they now would do differently. I have one event of many that for some reason has recently been clamouring in my head, and looking back at the 5-years-old me, I am so fortunate it turned out as well as it did, because it could have been really bad.
You know that phrase, never talk to strangers?
I was about 5 years old, and walking alone to school in the morning. The public school I attended was only about a 5 or 6 minute short-legged walk from home (which when I became long-legged shaved down to a cool 3 minutes and 28 seconds), a route that involved cutting through our back yard into the neighbour’s back yard (we actually wore a groove in the grass from walking this path, and the grass grew in a different colour. I am sure it will show up on aerial photography for a few more years, which tickles the archaeologist in me), crossing to a path, and then following the sidewalk to the school. There was one fairly busy road to cross at the end, and for part of the way you had to walk past the scary high school with very cool and grown up appearing students who might smile and say hello or might make some terribly cutting comment on your appearance.
I was late. This was not uncommon. My mother always says I was a dawdler in the morning. She would send me upstairs to get dressed and I would never reappear. She would come up to see where I had gone and invariably I would be lying stomach down on my bed, clad in underwear and a shirt, book in one hand, and the other hand holding a sock up in the air behind me as I aimlessly waved my leg around trying to make the two connect.
She would quickly chivvy me out the door after throwing clothes on me, raking my hair with a comb and washing my face with a scratchy washcloth. I would have to run most of the way to school, in an attempt to get there before the bell rang. Most times I only made it half-way before the bell rang, a sound which sent needles of ice into my chest. Since I was usually late, that meant that notes started coming home, or even worse, I would have to talk with the Principal.
I was scared of the Principal, and I was so well socialised (I ruefully smirk now) I would get into an absolute panic at being late or doing anything outside the realm of what Good Little Girls do. If you made a list of the characteristics of a Good Little Girl (Nerd edition), I had them in spades. Thick glasses: Check. Slightly wonky haircut: Check. Not comfortable in own skin: Check. Poor fashion sense: Check. Aim to please authority figures: Check. Pathological fear of being “bad” or not “measuring up”: Check. And so on.
Well, to get back to the tale, that day I was slightly behind schedule, and the morning was very hurried, so I was bustled out the door by my mother. I ran towards the school, and I even remember what I was wearing. Brown mary-janes, white itchy ribbed wool tights, and a blue velvet dress. I had my Snoopy satchel. Just as I came up to the crossing of the busy street, I realised I had forgotten something.
I can’t even remember what it is now, which is pretty sad. I am sure it was something like an activity sheet, or more likely, my reader book. I had a Grade 3 reader while I was in Grade 1, but I had to bring it to school every day and show the teacher what I had done and also show her I hadn’t lost it.
Anyhow, I realised at that moment, so close to the objective, that I had forgotten this vitally important thing, and so would have to run all the way back home, and be late. I had been building up to another serious discussion about tardiness with the Principal, and at that moment, thinking about how he would say how disappointed he was in me, I lost it.
Right there on the curb, I started crying. I remember so clearly the feeling that I was tethered by one foot, and darting back and forward while I tried to decide what to do. Do I show up at school, on time yet missing the important object? Do I run home and get the object, yet be late and have another embarrassing, scary meeting? Then the sky opened up. I totally am probably misremembering this for dramatic effect, but I do clearly remember that it was raining, so who knows. Anyhow, I was crying on the curb, only a road width’s away from my objective. The bell rang. I was now late AND I still had forgotten the book.
A car pulled up beside me, and a woman got out. I don’t remember anything about what she looked like, except a vague impression of dark short hair. She came running over to me and asked me what was wrong. I tearfully told her my dilemma, and then the woman offered to drive me home to get the missing object.
This is the part that scares me. My parents told me not to get into cars with strangers. The town I grew up in is small, and was even smaller back then, so really, most people in town know or know of each other, but that still isn’t an excuse for what I did next.
I. Got. Into. The. Car. I not only got into the car, but I got into the car with a stranger, and then told her my name, and where I lived.
She did drive me home, (all 468 metres) and things turned out all right in the end, but I will always remember my mother after the woman had left freaking out and telling me very forcefully to never get into cars with strangers again. Nothing in the world was so important that one would do such a thing. It’s quite unsettling to me now, as I abstractly mull over that memory, that despite all my rational training and instruction and thoughts and knowledge, I let panic override everything.
Definitely something to think about when we have kids. Now? I am slightly less of a Good Girl, and I think that is a good thing.