Disclaimer, this was just a dream!
I’m sat in my mothers bedroom, on the Paisley bedding watching as she throws everything out of her fitted wardrobe.
“There, look through that”, she says, her hair is in an eighties style, curled fringe and ends, wearing a black and red flowery dress she sighs and sits next to me.
“Then we can discuss when you can pay me back”, she says looking sadly into my eyes.
I feel panic rising, ‘pay you back?’, I don’t know if I dare speak again but I squeeze the words out, ‘for a school uniform?’.
How am I going to pay back for a school uniform? I’m in school? I feel the tears welling up in my eyes and the blood rushing to my head.
Dad walks in and pats me on the shoulder, “it’s ok, not now.”
I slide off the end of the bed and start looking for anything that might do, nothing looks remotely uniform like. I settle on a pair of black jeans and a white flowery summer top, the sort with elastic so it hugs you.
We’re at a meeting in school, the teacher is saying they will give me a uniform for free, but what I’m wearing is just fine for now. He can see I’m visibly relieved and is trying to console me. The school is big, it’s my old high school. I’m 12 again and everything around me looks gigantic. The stairs, the classrooms, even the work benches.
I hate being the new kid. Everyone is watching as I climb up a stool in the science block and I wonder how they got up there. Bunsen burners are bubbling concoctions away in jars on each desk. I feel the heat from the flames as I look at the colours and dancing air inside each once. I start to feel faint and I’m falling down, down down.
I’m awake. It’s 4am. I’m in bed safe, no school. I’m 41.
Stop Walking on Egg Shells 