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The world my little girl is growing up is already so different from the one I grew up in.
Growing up in the 80's was idyllic (or maybe we were all just oblivious); we lived with our doors unlocked, children at home alone or on the streets playing. My best friend lived on the street perpendicular to mine and our primary school was less than a 5 minute walk away. In between our houses, next to the dairy (that's a corner shop for all your brits, not where you milk your cows) there use to be a big, old tree with lots of nooks and crannies. A great place for hiding notes! Now I can't remember exactly what we had to tell each other considering we walked to school together, spent all day together at school and after... but the idea of leaving a secret note or receiving one, usually accompanied by a lolly, was just so thrilling! (Just to remind you I was 8 years old!). This lasted a couple of weeks until one day someone stole a note and our lolly. That was the end of that.
But that was juts the start of my life of communication: giving and taking notes / messages / faxes / phone calls / letters / emails / text messages / skype .. anymore to add to the list?
At school we use to write notes in class, pass them to each other in the hallway on the way to another class or send secret anonymous notes to boys we liked. A few from memory:
"Dear Roger*, Will you go out with me? Tick the boxes below. YES / NO / MAYBE. Love Sue*
"Dear Anna*, Sue* thinks she is so cool. Is she ignoring us? Let's ignore her back."
"Dear Sally*, Do you like Roger*? If you do, you can have him. I don't like him anymore. If you want I can ask him if he'll go out with you?"
At home we use to fax notes to each other (even this one still confuses me today - why?!?!), sit on conference calls for hours... my poor Dad had to add an extra line when he had 3 teenage girls fighting to use the phones. Some boys were unlucky enough to get dumped by fax by some of my friends... I know cos I had to edit their draft faxes for them!
If only text messages had existed 8 years ago so I could've texted Tim after I had met him instead of spending hours plucking up the courage to call him!
I wish I had kept some of my old messages but in the years of moving around they have all been thrown away. At the same time I probably would be horrified about the things I wrote about the boys I liked, the girls who were being mean and how much I hated my parents (I didn't mean it, I love you now Mum + Dad!!).
Now, my life is all about keeping in touch with all my beautiful friends as much as I can. They are all over the world but emails, text messages, phone calls and skype make the world all that much smaller. It would be a long way from Sao Paulo to check if there is a secret message and lolly waiting for me in a hole in a tree by the dairy.
*Names have been changed to protect the innocent
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