Contrary to North America, the new school year in the Southern Hemisphere starts in a couple of weeks, so we are being inundated with television ads about starting school. And it’s making me remember back to the bizarre joy of stationary shopping. There was just something, for me as a child, about a clean, new pencil-case, filled with pens that actually work, twink that hadn’t leaked, rubbers that were still their shape. And clean, new books that hadn’t been written in. Every year I would strive to write so neatly, but alas, my handwriting is atrocious. One work-mate commented that it looks like a drunken spider had crawled over the page. Sigh.
I never really noticed these perfectionistic tendencies until my current manager pointed them out in relation to my work. It may have been sparked by the hand-over notes I wrote for my maternity leave replacement – all 18 pages of them. Whoops. I’m not the stereotypical perfectionist – I’m incredibly messy. But when it comes to my work, or producing something, it needs to be as close to perfect as I can make it.
Seeing these ads for stationary sales has brought all these feelings rushing back to me, but it’s lovely to look back and remember my childhood fondly. I was incredibly lucky to have a wonderful safe home and be able to enjoy my childhood (and not be in charge of the washing of a family of 14 at 6 years old, as I recently read in another blog). Hopefully my son will enjoy just such a childhood; we may not have the money to give him overseas vacations every year or a thousand motorised toys, but he will remember the small things no doubt, like the thrill of the first day back at school, backpack full of new stationary, the year full of possibility.
