Gone are the days when....
21st of January 2022
Gone are the days when I had to wake up early everyday to go to school, slept 9 am and woke 6 am but it feels like I only slept for 2 minutes. I hated school so much that I wished I would grow up so fast so going to school would be out of the equation. I remember the days when I copied assignment solutions from my classmates who had already done it so I wouldn’t get flogged by those teachers that showed no mercy! Those days when I washed my socks early mornings before dressing up for school, and dried them by squeezing them between my towel, and placing them before the standing fan.
Gone are the days when I had nothing to worry about but simply wanted to play all day long and watch TV all night long. Fun was the watchword, I wanted was to be free to do whatever I wanted, this includes skipping school and not doing assignments. I hated exams so much that I usually fell sick once the time came- the reason for my poor performances. Lol.
Gone are the days when I watched Samurai Jack and Power puff girls on Cartoon Network- Samurai Jack was sent back in time and never defeated Aku till the series ended, we were so obsessed with Power puff girls that we didn’t ask what special ingredient was in the “chemical X”. Samurai X had a X mark on his face which we found cool; we often used a pen to write the “X” on our cheeks while hoping to have his sword swinging abilities.
Gone are the days when Avatar was a thing, we all wished to have the arrow on our head so we could control the four elements (water, earth, fire, air) like Avatar- Aang did. As kids we always argued which element was stronger until the second season when Princess Azula did a lightening technique and we all wished we could harness lightening as well. Childhood was so fun that we put our pens between our fist and called ourselves wolverine. We sometimes used pencils as chop sticks while eating noodles in a bid to imitate the Chinese style of eating, this didn’t go well lol.
Gone are the days when one Naira was equivalent to one Dollar, yet we complained that the economy was a failed one.… I’d rather not go further.
Gone are the days when Ajinomoto was the favourite brand of seasoning among housewives and restaurants in Nigeria until it was discovered that it was also used as a bleaching agent. We all assumed it would bleach our stomachs and intestine, hence stopped its importation. Lol. Those days when every parent wanted their sons to become engineers, and daughters Doctors so they could brag about their children among their friends. Now it’s a more advanced world and children are free to choose their career based on their interest.
Gone are the days when every child wanted to be Ben 10 because we wanted to be able to transform to Ten different aliens while fighting enemies from various dimensions. We all wanted to be among the X-men and argued about the most powerful Telepath between Professor X, Jean grey or Emma Frost. The answer is obviously Professor X, but we argued because it was fun to do so.
Gone are the days when we had no responsibility on our shoulder and thought life was so easy. As Nigerian kids, all wanted to finish high school by age 15, get into college by 16, graduate by 20 0r 21, get a job by 22, a car and a house by 23 and blah blah… All unrealistic expectations. By the time you write JAMB (Joint Admission Matriculation Examination) about three or four times you’d begin to see the reality of life… ha-ha.
Gone are the days when we all wanted to see Santa Claus so badly that we persuaded our parents to take us to Christmas parties so we could get a gift from him. We all wanted to be good so Santa wouldn’t skip us in his list. We were made to believe that Santa knows everything, he knows if we’ve been happy or sad, good or bad. In fact, he had the all-seeing eye, lol. I hope he didn’t take an occasional peek when were in the bathroom. Lol.
Gone are the days when I didn’t have to write about the past days because the past was our present and we knew nothing more. Now things have changed so much that there is a past to write about, and we all wish we could go back to the past to re-live some of our wonderful memories while also wishing we could undo some of our mistakes.
When we were a kid,we wish to become adult in an instant because all we know is when were grown up we can already do things that we wanted. Yet,now that we are adult we wanted to go back times when we were a kid,to be free and without worries.