I was always an outgoing, talkative, curious, absent-minded, but very impertinent girl, who got into trouble for what she said and also got others into trouble. Looking back, I think my recklessness was due to a naivety typical of children, but also to a sincerity typical of Sagittarians.

I was often punished for saying things I shouldn't have said, like the time an uncle brought a new girlfriend home and I told her, in front of the girl, that she was uglier than the other one, or the time my mom gave one of her friends a gift and I told her that my dad had fought because the gift was so expensive. This verbal incontinence led my parents to repeat to me over and over again, “Don't say that, don't repeat that, don't let that word come out of your mouth.” They raised me not to be so honest.

Laughing when I shouldn't have was also one of my flaws. Sometimes I did it out of recklessness, but many times it was also out of fear: I would get a fit of laughter if I was scared, for example, if I felt caught doing something naughty or caught doing something wrong. Laughing without thinking about why I was doing it was one of my hobbies, and I imagine it was for many children.

Since I did it so many times, I'm only going to talk about two occasions when I laughed when I shouldn't have and that my family still remembers.

The first was when an aunt died. My grandmother was crying, and everyone present was showing sadness and grief. Although I was about 10 years old, I knew little about death, let alone its codes. So when I heard a lady tell my grandmother that my aunt looked just like her, I burst out laughing in the middle of the room. Obviously, my parents gave me murderous looks and took me out of the room. My paternal family always remembers this anecdote as if they couldn't forgive me.

And the second time was when I accompanied my grandmother to the doctor because she sometimes got disoriented. My grandmother didn't like me holding her hand because “she wasn't disabled,” she would say. So that day, we were walking quietly back home along the sidewalk and had to cross the street, but to do so we had to jump over a puddle. I jumped over it easily, but when my grandmother jumped, she slipped on the puddle and fell into it. Instead of helping her, I started laugh uncontrollably and looking around sheepishly. From the puddle, my grandmother asked me to help her up and then scolded me for laughing at her.

I think it's normal for children to use expressions like the ones above, which adults find embarrassing. But I think that's what childhood is all about: laughing when you want to, drawing even if it's on the walls, not being what others want you to be, being happy for no reason, and why not: going against what is expected. As adults, later, we will learn to live according to the rules.