Your Past

For most folks, you live your life trying to get away from your past. You focus on the future and don't want to spare the energy or time to look back. There is enough crazy things in my past that for the most part that is how I live. Looking forward.

BUT

There are also aspects of my past that I do like to reflect upon once in awhile. Things that when I'm having a bad day, I can bring up and those memories never fail to make me smile.

My father was in the Canadian Armed Forces. We moved all over the place and one of those postings that will forever stand out in my thoughts is the one to Bucharest Romania.

We lived in Bucharest from 1982 thru 1984. Living there during that time was like nothing I had ever experienced before and would never go thru again. Romania was under a horrid leader and the conditions for the local people there were mind blowing. It really was like going back in time.

Because we were a Diplomatic family, things were much different for us. We saw glimpses of it but didn't have to deal with all aspects.

During the time that I was there, I went to the American School of Bucharest. ASB as we all knew it as. I was there for grade 6 and 7. The school had children from all different countries around the world going to it. Some spoke English as their native tongue. Some knew English from learning it elsewhere. Some spoke not a word of English and learned while going to ASB.

There was also other schools in the city that we had contact with for different reasons. Two that come to mind right away are the Italian School and the French School. DAnces were held. They'd be invited to see plays that we'd put on etc.

When I left in 1984..... I stayed in touch with a few friends. Sometimes we lost touch and it was hard to find others. Romania went thru a revolution a few years later and the old school was destroyed. No way to find out where someone may have moved onto next.

When I found computers and the Internet, I started doing searches. Looking up names that I could recall from back then. I kept a journal with as much information as I could remember on everyone.

With time........ everything faded and packed away in my thoughts.