Post photo: two children | © Pixabay
Do you remember who you were in? So I was in Oliver, and pretty seriously. We had definite plans for our future, namely we wanted to get married. Until one day my sweetheart told me about his career plans: He wanted to be a fireman or a racing driver. I already saw myself as a grieving widow with a bunch of kids and an unpaid single family home. (That detail probably came with growing up.) And so I ended the relationship. I still remember it like today, we were sitting on the stairs to Oliver's apartment, I made sure of the seriousness of his career choice and said goodbye with a kiss, on the cheek of course. At that time Oliver was six and I was five. Now that our youngest is at school, too, at the same school as our son, I am often reminded of my childhood sweetheart. Because since both children have been to school, I've finally found out what's going on there. At lunchtime, a real competition breaks out over who gets to tell me about school. No, I don't get any details from the lessons, but I know what's going on in the playground. If you ask my children, the most important thing in the school day is the break anyway. And that's how I find out who's in whom: Jasmin has been in Florian for a long time. But Florian is in Nadine. And so on and so on. (The names are all fictitious, of course!)
I lost sight of my childhood sweetheart at that time. But a few years ago I found out that Oliver had become a teacher. Of course, no one can say today what will become of the love affairs in the playground at our children's school. If your children are at the same school, I am sorry to disappoint you. I will not reveal my knowledge, all calls are futile! But I'm already looking forward to the next lunchtime conversations when I find out again who's with whom — in love, of course. But the children wouldn't put the word in their mouths...
This blog post first appeared on June 12-13, 2004 in the newspaper's "Family Ties" column Trier folk friend, in which changing authors commented on everyday family life.
Ursula Schaffer is a teacher at Realschule Plus Bleialf in Rhineland-Palatinate, living in Bitburg and even more, my favorite sister. Among other things, she wrote several glosses for the above column. I liked them so much that I asked them to publish at least some of them on my weblog.
#family #first love
