How did the slightly overweight boy survive?

Paulien CornelisseAugust 26, 202213:34

The first grade introduction days. Groups of girls and boys walked to the sea on the beach of Texel. That remained strictly separate – apparently it was important at this stage that separate groups were formed. The boys were talking about who kicked who and who should act normally. The girls talked about getting tanned and whether you could actually do that if you were really white.

I felt sorry for the children, because it all seemed so intense and exhausting to me. The pecking order. How did the slightly overweight boy survive? Why was that girl walking alone? It was hard to watch, but the kids themselves all seemed happy, and maybe they were.

Don’t make a problem out of everything, I told myself. I suspect that something in me thinks – mistakenly – that my doom mentality is helping those kids. That there is an anonymous spectator somewhere, not everything has to be fun.

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