Some sentences don’t hit you when they’re spoken. Only later. Much later. Years, even decades later — for example, in a shop. When you’re not thinking about anything in particular, just paying, packing, moving on. That’s when those old images tend to flash back, the small details I’ve been writing about lately.
My mother is not one of those fleeting details. She is in my head all day long. Not a single image, but many small scenes. Memories that don’t bring nostalgia, but direction. They show me how not to do things. These memories are always present, and from time to time, they remind me which way is not worth going.
There is a strange side effect when you notice too early that the people around you are doing things wrong. Later, you try to avoid anything that reminds you of it. Not in big decisions, but in everyday life. In small concessions. In the “no”, you don’t say. In choosing to give rather than take. To fix things rather than ask questions.
For a long time, these things remain invisible. They become part of routine, part of how things work. You don’t experience them as decisions, more as natural reactions. It’s only when criticism comes from the outside — unexpectedly, without any warning — that it becomes clear not everyone sees the same thing in what feels natural to you.
My children picked up on this perfectly. Of course, they don’t criticise it or question it. They simply know that in certain situations, I instinctively give before I weigh things up. I struggle to say no when I see the expectation in their eyes. Often, I don’t even decide. I just do it. I fix it — because I don’t want something to be missing there and then. I don’t want a half-lived memory to come back to them years later, in a shop. It’s better if it’s easier now. Better if it’s there now.
I must have been in fifth grade when everything at school revolved around skateboards.
https://jatekmuzeum.blog.hu/2014/10/03/gordeszka_a_80-as_evek_vaganyainak
Not the “Western” kind we only saw on VHS tapes back then. What was actually available to us was a small plastic board with four wheels. Nothing special — and yet everyone wanted one. Me too.
My parents thought it was dangerous, so they didn’t buy one for me. There was no argument, no negotiation. Just no. So I decided I would buy it myself. I started saving. I sold everything I didn’t need. A spare jack plug. An unopened Polimer cassette tape. Slingshot rubber. Hand-bent U-shaped metal hooks for a slingshot. Everything I could. I didn’t spend my pocket money either.
Even my father joined in. He borrowed three hundred forints from me, then paid it back with interest a week later. Of course, he didn’t need the money — he earned well. We were just pretending he wasn’t giving it to me “for nothing.
I was at around five hundred forints when my mother also asked for the money. A loan. I waited for her to give it back. In the meantime, I managed to save the remaining two hundred, so I could have bought the seven-hundred-forint board. I told her it would be good if I could get the money back.
Instead of money, I got shouting. A lecture about how she fed and clothed me, and what right I had to hold her accountable for that money.
So I didn’t get a skateboard.