A train to childhood

Seeing your classmate 5 years after finishing school evokes indescribable feelings in you. Even though we met each other more than once since then - practically every year at an annual alumni meeting at school - and kept in touch via mobile. But today it was something special. We talked about nothing as usual, and it was not proper talk – it was a chat, one of a kind that two girls are common to produce when they meet up burning with desire to get free from a huge pile of information. Sharing photos, videos and news on the lives of other classmates. Olya does not seem to change over the years, and I constantly used to catch myself at the thought that every time I looked at her I saw…myself – 5,6,7,10 years ago!.. Maths lesson in front of our teacher’s Dutch colleagues. Lyosha and I are standing at the blackboard explaining the solution of some problem, and the teacher praises us for being the most rational in solution team. I have nothing to do with this success, ‘coz it was Lyosha who had solved the problem. He has always been top mathematician of our class. And I’m just an assistant. But I like the idea of being praised in Maths, the lesson at which I’m no way a leader. Make others believe you are clever, and you are on half the way to Gold Medal :) A common strategy of ‘academic survival’ that now carries a proud scientific name of “PR”… A trip to Rostov in the 10th grade. We’re all together, “A” class and our “B”, me, Olya, Zhenya, Lyosha, Seryozha, everyone. Zhenya and I are trying on Russian folk costumes and look like true boyarynias. Kirill and Rodik are not behindhand in similarity. Rodik’s even handed in a balalaika to get his image finished… It’s the times of first real problems with the teaching staff and parents, first real alcohol parties in a nightclub, first skipping lectures, and first love… First poems to appear to express my inner state, mainly melancholic-sounding. HE will never come to know about my feelings due to a number of evident reasons… Those great plays we used to stage with Katya’s Mom – golden days of our drama team!.. Those Farewell Party songs of “Where does our childhood go?” (“Kuda uhodit detstvo?”) type did not give a slightest idea of how important was the moment of parting with school life forever. We were all so smiley, in our beautiful ball dresses with fantastic hair-dos on our heads… Maybe it’s just TODAY that I fully realized that childhood is gone. Finishing school to be followed by university entrance exams, then university life to come next, new discoveries and relations, crazy student parties and still more crazy travels. Childhood seemed to continue. And now nothing more is left.. Nor even student life. Would I like to return to school days? YES, YES! NO!.. So much has been gained afterwards that I now wonder if I ever understood life before I finished school. Then what should we do? Simple. See our classmates, ‘coz seeing classmates is a train to childhood.