I am NOT SWISS and I DON'T SOUND SWISS either!

you know, i thought no-one at the day care center knew about us except our two close friends (hmm, what were their names?). one day i thought i was being clever when i asked one of the carers 'you don't know who i love, do you?' (can you hear the 'ner-ner' tone of voice?). i was utterly horrified when she knew!!!

but i got over the horror, and was only slightly more self-conscious about the whole thing (i was a very shy child, adolescent,... in fact, i'm still very shy. i just mostly manage to overcome it with a huge amount of effort. and then you can't get me to shut up...)

the worst thing about everyone knowing... i'm still ashamed and it's been nearly twenty years now!

we were in kindergarten and kinderkrippe (day care) together, and until that fateful moment i was convinced that no-one but our two faithful sidekicks knew and was desperate to keep it that way. i think i might have thought my mum would find out. just don't ask me why that would have been such a tragedy, that's a whole other can of worms.

so one day in kindergarten we were playing a game of some kind of tag. i can't remember exactly what happened. he was standing on a chair next to me, and he'd obviously done something i construed as endangering our cover of 'just friends'. i shoved him, just a little, to show anyone who might have been watching that there was nothing (absolutely nothing, do you hear?!) between us. (can you believe it, i was six! clearly, i've always been a weirdo.)

roberto fell off the chair and hurt himself. not badly, but of course the teacher was very upset, anything could have happened! she sent me to sit outside in the corridor as a punishment.

i was absolutely devastated! i hadn't meant to hurt him! i'd never have... and now i couldn't even apologise cause i was stuck out here and he was inside... i hated myself for hurting him.

and when i was let back in, i was too embarrassed to go and apologise. i don't think i ever apologised for it properly. and although he didn't really get hurt physically, i'm still ashamed of it. how sad is that...

and that was the worst thing about finding out that everyone 'knew about us': that horrendous moment was completely unnecessary (of course it would have been unnecessary anyway to a normal person, but we're not talking about a normal person here), cause everyone already knew anyway.

better memories: the four of us used to play this game where two of us were in the little room at the back of the kinderkrippe-building and the other two went outside the door. it seems to somehow have evolved out of nothing. the two inside would hide under the covers in the bed there and the two outside would creep back in and try to scare them. who knows why...

but it evolved further to the point where roberto and i would always insist on being the two in the room, so we could kiss under the covers. we thought we were so grown up! no tongues of course ;-) i'm not sure we could have imagined it...

our friends got more and more bored of this version of the game. in fact, i think the boy gave up on us completely, long before the girl did. she kept trying to get us to switch places, but i was too jealous... oh dear ;-)

how weird, the things you find hidden in your memory sometimes...

the last time i saw roberto: the final day of kinderkrippe, before we all went off to separate schools in different parts of bern. we didn't want to say goodbye till the last minute. but his father came to pick him up and i was terrified of his father. he was a doctor. i think he was quite strict, but i'm sure he wouldn't have bitten me for saying goodbye to roberto ;-)

but i was too shy and scared to go up and say goodbye. i just lurked and watched him leave without ever looking back. he didn't say goodbye either...

（；_・）

Labels: guys, i'm special, sad, sometimes i don't like me, x365

posted by Vickster at 04:14.