The Balloon Years

These were, probably, the MOST difficult years of our entire lives, being STUCK between adulthood and childhood, not yet an adult, but no longer a child either…translated…

There would always be a couple of years in our lives, that’s like blowing air into a balloon, we’d used all our strengths, closed our eyes, and became grown-ups overnight. Turning around to look, and simply, couldn’t recall, what we took, to get here. For me, it’s probably, during my middle school years.

Perhaps, it’s the changes in my body, like my breasts bloated up, I’d started to have my period, the boys started having their beards and moustaches, what’s called “puberty”. And still, the balloon getting blown up was psychological, you’d needed to, pull all your strength together, and rush forward all at once, because three years from then, there was only ONE goal up ahead: the entrance exams.

Recalling to those three years, everything was totally a blur, perhaps, it was in how I’d closed my eyes repeatedly, as I’d blown air into that balloon. And, the moments I’d had my eyes closed, were mostly those days of heading to school early for the early study periods, cramming the texts, and taking the exams.the emotional “aspects” of growing up…photo from online…

Naturally, there were many, “puncture wounds” that have stayed too, but they’re not all, wonderful. Like on the cramped up busses, there would always be those horny men who’d gotten too close to your back, and started blowing air into your ears, to lift up your uniform skirts. Or like on the exams, the physical punishments of one wrong question, one hit, it’s normal that our hands were bruised to black and green, to the point that the instructor broke the stick that was used for the punishments. What’s magical was, the teacher took the wrong tests, and hit the wrong students, or accidentally, cracked the students’ watches, or that s/he got angered and kicked the board of the podium until the board cracked open……an assortment of never-before-seen accidents. Ahhhhhhhhhh, thinking back, it’s, quite tragic, but, as the teacher punished the wrong students, and the students looked like they were about to cry, everybody else were laughing about it.

When the stresses had no way out, I’d often chosen to ride on the busses, after school was out on Saturday afternoon, and rode back to where I got on, like how I was, walking along the boundaries of that balloon. Sometimes, I’d gone to the astronomy museum in Yuanshan to watch the sky screens, and for one moment, I’d gotten the illusion that I’d, left this city, the classroom, and the textbooks, that I was, lying on a plain somewhere, just, gazing up at the stars.

There were the sweeter moments of, perhaps, when I got my first taste of love, but, I’d gone to an all-girls’ school, I’d not known how to like a boy (and, back then, the boys had that angst and that unknown strange scent to me), so, the one’s I liked were mostly, girls. I’d still remembered that girl whom I’d liked, how she had long lashes, and how her eyes twinkled, recalled what her voice sounded like, and how she’d thrown the basketballs into the hoops, but, no matter how hard I’d thought, I can’t, recall her name, reason being, that we’d finally, lost track of one another, on the yearly skills level test.

this is only the physical aspect of growth…found online…

But, being in the best class wasn’t anything that’s too happy, some of us blew hard on that balloon, to the point that it’d, popped. On our last year of middle school, a student who’d always gotten the high grades stopped coming to class just a few months before the entrance exams. I’d gazed at her empty chair, and never knew what’s happened to her. The teacher didn’t say anything, just told us, that So-and-So fell ill and could no longer come to class, told us to work hard, and get into our top choice of schools, but also to remember to take a break, so we can have the strength, to pick the text back up and cram again.

Then, the words of read-aloud came from the classes, and, those tests that were handed down, picked up, graded, and then, returned back to us again.

And so, this, is how it was, in an academically competitive education forum, and, this is during one’s teenage years, and, teenage years are already, hard enough, we had to worry about what’s changing in our bodies (hormones, etc., etc., etc.), and at the same time, we still have to cope with whatever’s going on outside (peer pressures, tests, grades, entrance exams, etc., etc., etc., etc.) which is why the teenage years are never easy, especially when during this time is when EVERYTHING you’d gone through as a young child also overflowed…