"Our Time"

I was born in January which gave me the advantage of starting school one year early. Because of this, when I competed in school athletics competitions, I was always categorized with the people below my grade and people used to tell me that “Good for you. You’re competing with people who are below your grade, so it’s advantageous for you.” I found this statement problematic because it’s true that I’m competing with people who are below one grade to me, but our age was same and age is what mattered in athletics competition.” However, I could compete one year after my A/L examinations because of that “age advantage”. So my last school level athletics meet dated back to 2019.

I could not go for any school level competition as an expectator even though my juniors had been kept asking me to come because the usual rhythm was disturbed by covid after that and I was out of Galle when the competition happened. But this time, a junior asked me to reserve the date two to three weeks ahead, so I decided to make my time available for that.

We met in the ground at the planned time (obviously I was half an hour late as usual). Most of the juniors are also passed out now. Only very few current athletes of our school recognized me and I barely recognized them back. The eldest athletes were the ones who were the youngest at that time. I remember their names because I filled their entry forms at that time. but their faces have become slightly different. Our PT teacher was retired and the new PT teacher was someone with whom I competed in open meets when I was very young. But I was happy many PT teachers and coaches still remember me and happy to see me after so many years.

Time has changed many thing. We could not help but reminiscent about our good old time as school athletes. Felt so older than ever when we started each sentence with “ape kale” because ofc we thought that era was the best time of school athletics 😅

We used to see each other daily in the ground, working for the same targets. But our realities have become different now. Yet, it’s heartwarming to feel that we share the same bond that we had when we were school kids.

Thanks for reading!

Have a nice day!