It was the summer of 1984, hot, rainy, and thick with the scent of possibility and wet socks. Recently, the opposite sex had discovered me as the season’s unlikely hit. From misfit to Miss Fabulous, a transformation so abrupt it could have been orchestrated by Kafka or a particularly Shakespearian guardian angel.

I found myself swept into a new orbit, surrounded by friends from tennis camp, learning to play hockey with a borrowed stick

and even more borrowed confidence.

Alex and Adriana were siblings I met at tennis camp that summer — a brother and sister-duo who seemed to have cracked the code of adolescent life. Alex’s braces flashed like Morse code for “approach with caution,” while Adriana’s complexion erupted with the drama of minor volcanoes, yet neither seemed remotely bothered. Both were tall, effortlessly likeable, and, above all, genuinely kind. They were the sort of well-adjusted, universally accepted teens who could have starred in a public service announcement on the virtues of good breeding and better manners.

After a few weeks of shared games and easy laughter, they invited me to spend the rest of the summer in their hometown, nestled just below the river Maas (Brabant is a province located in the south of the Netherlands), a place so tranquil it made the average postcard look like a cry for help. For reasons that remained a delightful mystery to me, perhaps it was my sudden leap from perennial outsider to the season’s accidental guest of honour, they welcomed me into their world without hesitation. Their acceptance felt like being handed the keys to a secret society, one where kindness and character were the only membership requirements. I was in, and I had no idea how I got there.

When the weather was truly beyond human endurance — when the gods seemed locked in a thunderous, ongoing brawl and the humidity could have wilted steel — we would retreat to the second kitchen. There, we hockeyed in a contest that was equal parts endurance, skill, and questionable hygiene — an improvised rite of passage for the hormonally overcharged. The energy levels we generated were a marvel of nature, rivalling the very storms outside and, on occasion, the local power grid.

Our mornings in the communal swimming pool were mainly spent under a towel, kissing (with a new conquest) because nothing says romance like the scent of chlorine and impending athlete’s foot. Our afternoons in the flooded field were a blur of laughter, mud, and adolescent bravado. No bikini could compete with drenched hockey clothes, clinging and cold — a badge of honour for the newly initiated. Hormones and testosterone hung in the air as thick as fog, or possibly as asphyxiating as the locker room after practice.

In those moments, we became a tribe of three, bonded by sweat, laughter, and the unspoken understanding that adolescence is best survived with allies who see past braces and volcanoes to the person beneath. It was with them that I learned a simple equation, one that no textbook ever bothered to teach:

Belonging ≠ –(Difference)

Belonging is not the negative of being different.

If anything, it’s the opposite:

Belonging = Difference

Or, for those who like their philosophy with a dash of algebra:

Belonging = f(Difference)

In the mathematics of growing up, it turns out that belonging isn’t about erasing your oddities but about finding the people who value them as much as you do. Sometimes, the sum of our differences is the only formula for feeling at home.

But even the most exuberant equations have their variables. The negative note that summer was the discovery that Alex had a blood condition. One afternoon, during a bout of our usual rough play, his nose began to bleed — and simply wouldn’t stop. It was a moment that shattered the illusion of invincibility we wrapped around ourselves, a reminder that even the most loyal tribe has its vulnerabilities.

Their father was always absent, a shadow in family stories but never a persona present. The mother, on the other hand, was more of a social hawk rather than a butterfly — sharp-eyed, ever-present, and impossible to ignore. I remember her sitting cross-legged on the floor in a faded kimono, surrounded by newspapers, a cigarette dangling from her fingers, and greeting us with a voice as raspy as her whiskey: “Don’t bleed on the carpet, kids.” She could eviscerate a neighbour’s reputation before breakfast and still have time to remind us not to drip on the parquet.

And then there was the potato-stealing Teckel, the only creature in the entire animal kingdom to ever take a personal dislike to me. His contempt was as unwavering as his appetite for contraband tubers. While Alex and Adriana treated me like a rare comet, the Teckel made it his mission to remind me I was still an interloper.

His pièce de résistance? At bedtime, he would clamber onto my chest — an improbable feat for such short legs — and settle there, growling with the conviction of a tiny, furry Cerberus. It was less a cuddle and more a nightly assertion of territorial rights. I learned to fall asleep to the low rumble of canine disapproval, a reminder that even in a summer of newfound belonging, difference sometimes weighs about seven kilos and snores.

In the end, perhaps the Teckel was just doing his part in the grand equation:

Belonging = Difference + One Stubborn Dachshund

Because in that house, even being disliked was a form of being seen.

Against that backdrop, Orwell’s 1984 seemed almost quaint, its grey dystopia no match for the riotous, rain-soaked revolution of my own coming-of-age. If Big Brother was watching, I hope he took notes.

P.S Kajagoogoo’s hit will always transport me to those summer midnights.

Ooh, baby try

Hey girl

Move a little closer

You’re too shy, shy, hush-hush, eye to eye

Too shy, shy, hush-hush, eye to eye

Too shy, shy, hush-hush, eye to eye

Too shy, shy, hush-hush

Modern medicine falls short of your complaint

Ooh, try a little harder

You’re moving in circles won’t you dilate?

Ooh, baby try

Hey girl

Move a little closer

’Cause you’re too shy, shy, hush-hush, eye to eye

Too shy, shy, hush-hush, eye to eye

Too shy, shy, hush-hush, eye to eye

Too shy, shy, hush-hush