A week ago

Categories: uncategorized

Date: 03 November 2010 12:29:11

I saw my world upside down.

We've been thinking about holidays for next year. We like to involve the kids in those kind of decisions, so we asked what they fancy. And Cambuslang said he doesn't mind, so long as it's not too hot and they speak English. Now, if that had coincided with my preferences then I don't suppose I would have thought any more of it. But it doesn't, so I got to wondering where his preferences came from. After a little bit of digging it seems to boil down to an occasion in one of our few jaunts abroad when someone spoke to him in foreignese and he didn't understand, and another occasion when we had a picnic lunch on a warm day and there were wasps which he developed an irrational fear of.

So far so reasonable. But that foreign experience was at a ski resort we went to for a day, set in beautiful surroundings, where we had an absolutely fantastic day. It was spring so down in the valleys and towns it was almost summery (compared to Britain), and they loved the surprise of finding so much snow when we got up into the mountains. They loved the sledging, they loved the cable car, they loved the strange foreign lunch, they loved the gift shop (which is where their feelings diverged from mine, temporarily), they had an absolutely wonderful day. And that was one day of a weeks holiday where we visited many lovely places, all chosen for their appeal to our kids (who have slightly odd tastes, bizarrely, given how normal their parents are). And the holiday was a great success - they enjoyed every day, they loved the hotels we stayed in, the towns we visited, the things we did. Even their parents were happy. It was just brilliant - one of the most successful holidays we've ever had. And, because of it, Cambuslang doesn't want to go anywhere foreign.

Shall I tell you about the wasps too? No, I can't be bothered. The story is almost identical - one unfortunate moment in a great day in a very good holiday.

There's lots of glum things to conclude from this, the genetic nature of depression being only one of the most obvious. But what has got me thinking most now is the fact that I hated my childhood. It was crap. Nothing good ever happened; at birthdays and Christmases I always got things I didn't want and never the things I did. Holidays always consisted in doing unpleasant things that my parents wanted, or my brother. I had no friends, nothing pleasant to do. It was just one long painful relentless slog. My parents were fond of saying how childhood is the best time of your life, and I always found it unbelievably hollow. I suppose in that sense I was a born optimist - I refused to believe that the rest of life could be as bad as childhood. In many ways I blamed my parents - it's undoubtedly their fault that I never fitted in - that I was born with such a wierd demeanour and such odd tastes and developed such a complete lack of social skills. Lots of other people and things were to blame too, but my parents were the biggest culprits.

That was my understanding of things; that's the interpretation I made of the world - that's how it seemed to be. How it seems to be, I should say, too. Except.

Except if I try and see the world through my son's eyes, and try and reconcile that with how I see his world, I can't help wondering if the way I saw and see my childhood is as utterly divorced from reality as that. Was it actually quite good, and all the badness was in my head? That's such a disturbing thought that I can't actually process it, or see where it leads at all. I simply can't take that possibility in.