7.4.09

childhood "souvenirs"

I was looking at my legs and saw the faint traces of my childhood scars and realized that I still remember how I got them all.

The biggest one is on my right knee. I was 13 and it was a weekend. I was riding a bike with one of my friends riding tandem at the back. We were going downhill pretty fast and the chain suddenly broke. My friend panicked and jumped, sending me and the bike flying. I ended up with a great big scrape on my right knee and a couple of small ones on my other knee, hands and arms and had to be absent from school for 3 days.

On my left knee, I have a small, button-sized keloid which I got when I was about 6 years old. There was a line of red ants at the back of our house and I got this brilliant idea to put a styrofoam cup at the end of the stick, set it aflame and let the burning plastic drip on the ants to annihilate them. Unfortunately for me, a drop fell on my knee, burned my skin and that's what you call karma, hahaha!

And the third is located behind my left calf. I was about 10 and taking my then two year old sister on a bike ride. I was wending through a rough foot path when the bike's front wheel hit a big rock. Since I'd been moving slowly, I found myself starting to lose my balance. My mind raced and I realized it would be better if I got hurt instead of my little sister (else my dad would have my hide!) so I used my left leg to try and keep us from falling down. In the process, the back of my calf caught on the end of a bolt from the rear wheel which scraped away skin and tissue. My sister escaped unhurt and I was left with a nasty gash.

It's funny to look back at them now. They bring back memories of how much I enjoyed my youth - playing in the streets, running around with the neighborhood kids, getting scraped and scratched and just having fun.