Scars

Vonita

I was six turning seven when I started school. We lived in a little town an hour from the main city Johannesburg. My best friend and I had grown up together, we lived around the corner from each other and we were ‘family friends’. Her name was Angelique and we were best friends forever. Our personalities complimented each other.
In those days we used to walk in a group to school. Even from first grade, we would walk by ourselves without adult supervision. I loved my school. I loved my teacher. I had my friend Angelique and we would run amok and have as much fun as we could. I was the first child to be able to read fluently. So my teacher Mrs Van Wyk used to call on me to help with reading groups. I was really confident. And happy.
The following year my parents decided to move to the city. We left the week after my eighth birthday at the end of April. I started my new school in the middle of the term, was introduced to the class first thing on a Monday morning. I was never able to embrace the new school fully. I was always looking back.
This morning I saw a group on FB. It is a school group of my first school. They celebrated their sixtieth anniversary last year. A couple of people in the group remember Mrs Van Wyk. It seems she really was as nice as I can remember her.
And I realize we scar in our lives. And sometimes time doesn’t quite heal those scars. Even now over thirty years later I find myself looking back. I can enter into those feelings. I wish we hadn’t left. I wish my parents hadn’t removed me. From a place where I was happy and confident to a place where I never quite fitted in.

30 thoughts on “Scars”

    1. It is so true. I have been a bit overwhelmed with how real the feelings are for me. Even though decisions have led to me being where I am today, I still have this pain surfacing. Couldn’t we have stayed? Did we really need to leave? Wounds that cut really deep for me it seems! Thank you for reading and commenting!

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      1. I can understand. This post reminded me of many memories as well. Only if we could go back and change the things that left the permanent scars, life would have been so different and beautiful. You are welcome 🙂

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  2. I can empathize. I grew up in South Africa and started Primary School in Meredale. I was there for a year before my father moved us. It was the first of six Primary School’s and seven High Schools I attended in the course of ten years. I left after I turned sixteen to finish my Matric year by correspondence school because I couldn’t handle the moving any more. To this day, I still miss my very first school…the teacher who encouraged my reading and writing and my best friend, a boy named Darren.

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    1. Oh! Thank you for sharing! Your experience sounds heaps worse than mine, I only had the one move to contend with. And then we went to a convent in high school. We lived in vereeniging initially. It was out of the city but really close knit in some ways. Not sure where meredale is. Are you still in South Africa?

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      1. You’re welcome. My last school was Riverside High in Vereeniging. I went to schools all over the country. Meredale is a suburb in Johannesburg. I also went to a school in Forest Hills and Alberton and also attended Vaal High School at one stage. I left South Africa in 2002 and live just outside of London in the UK now.

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  4. Wow, small world indeed. I think I spent about a year at Milton Primary too. It’s so nice to meet someone who is from the same corner of the world! 🙂 Do you live in Johannesburg still?

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    1. Milton Primary was my first school! There is an FB group for Milton Primary. It still seems like such a nice school, great community spirit etc. *I wasn’t just imagining it* lol. I was there 1981-2. We moved to the West Rand of Johannesburg (Florida) and then helderkruin, and after I started working I lived in Randpark Ridge. We left South Africa in 2007, we’re now in Sydney, Australia. I’m suddenly feeling homesick speaking of all these Johannesburg suburbs! 🙂 My dad and sister are still in Johannesburg.

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      1. I was at Milton in 1992, only a year but I loved it. I was on the Scholar Patrol and became truly interested in writing at that stage. It seems most of my school friends throughout the years have all left to go to the UK, Australia or the US. I know what you mean, but I’ve grown accustomed to the UK now.

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      3. I know what you mean. It’s different for me though. I don’t have anything or anyone to go back to. I still don’t know if I’m meant to stay in the UK or if it’s just a stopping point for me. I do know that I probably won’t end up back in SA. 🙂

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  6. The same thing happened to me like over an over. Almost 4 or 5 times we moved into, not just a new city, but a new part of the country. And at one point I got so used this idea of moving ahead, leaving friends behind that, I was no more interested in knowing or befriending new people. No doubt, I have a very small, but close knit-group of friends now unlike others who have more than 100 people in their FB I have not yet crossed 90 LOL.

    These things can scar you forever and we might not even know that.

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    1. Yes, it is something I haven’t thought about for a long time, and then just like that, there it was in my mind, and the feelings were so clear. Sorry to hear you had a similar experience. Imagine if you had just stayed with your original friends?

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      1. Yeah, agreed the feelings are very clear.-even after so long. I do wonder what life would have been like, had it taken a different course.
        I guess the sadness comes from having to leave your friends other than that I don’t really regret any of it.

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