I make it a point to try not to judge whether a story is “relatable” or not (mostly since a lot of great stories are absolutely unrelatable to anything remotely connected to my life).
So I’m not being evaluative but just descriptive when I say that the first part of this chapter was one of the most relatable things I’ve read in a very long time, not because an incident anything at all like this ever happened to me, but because it brought back what being a little kid was like incredibly intensely.
You’re off balance because of something like forgetting your water bottle again, so you're in that “Mom’s gonna kill me” headspace, and then you come across something that doesn’t even compute at first (a friend crying who seemed fine just a minute ago) and whose problem is one of a kid’s worst nightmares (losing a parent), and you think you’re supposed to do something to help your friend, but you haven’t the slightest idea what, and primal instinct takes over and you run away, because at least getting yelled at is safe and familiar, but you still feel like crap for running away.
And the next day everything is fine again, except just a little scarier than ever because you now know that the world can throw stuff at you out of nowhere and you may not be able to handle it the way you want to.
So good for you, Nana-chan.
last edited at Feb 10, 2019 10:19PM