let lemons be angry

wasn't it fun when we chose pencilcases and files and schoolbags just for school, and cut out pictures from magazines to decorate our notebooks, as if borrowed images told who we really are.. and wasn't it fun when you had to choose between north star and bata and converse white shoes, and when how you laced up your plain white shoes made you cool or not.. and wasn't it fun when we were into things like paw prints and writing letters.. of course i'm mixing up all the memories, primary and secondary school, but after a while they're all the same. they were days when things were crystal clear, almost painfully clear. "somebody likes you" and an extra ear piercing--little things that were extraordinary back when we were learning new feelings. colourful sportsbras and highlights in hair for the first time. and further back, in the toilet with stephanie during lessons feeding our tamagotchis or tucking in our pe t-shirts (longer at the sides, it was important).. a few years later, in the toilet with stephanie using handphones. downloading the very first mp3--creep by radiohead, with audio galaxy. fighting and making up with friends every other week. making sure we had what was called a best friend to spend recess with and sit with during reading time. wasn't it fun when we read fluffy books about teenage lives, and collected colourful pens.. learning to fold letters in eight different ways and of course, to write with the mg handwriting. jies and freevote. buying the first expensive guitar with your own money. fabric paint making squiggly patterns on everything. spice girls and all saints, cargo pants and diamond studs. keeping letter books.

and now. a different kind of fairytale, a swathe of other first-times. we're everything to be envied, waiting in-between a gloriously childish past and a lifetime of new experiences ahead of us. i can already imagine myself dreaming up the old jc days, and making a scrapbook of symbols that were "fun". years later, life will speed up with different first-times, friends getting married and having children, ourselves getting married and having children..

what if one day we run out of first-times to look forward to?