Dear Childhood

Dear Childhood, I’d like to tell you that you have been the best years of my life so far, but now I’m grown up. Those fearful decisions I have to make have made their way into my path and know I have to spend more time with them then I can you. Don’t be jealous, and just remember you’re my favorite and always will be. I’ll miss the days when I didn’t have a care in the world what was going on, I’ll miss playing and running freely through life without any restraints except from the parents, but mostly I’ll miss how easy life was.

Now they tell me you have to get a higher education, you need a well-paying job; you need to fit in this neat little shell that is the world they grew up in. Well I say one thing that’s history, today is today and it’s different then when you grew up. So forget about what you’re going to tell me and listen to what I have to say. My daily life is the real world looking at me, staring at me, and asking the question what’s next or what now? My only answer is, I’m seventeen years old, and how am I supposed to know the answer to that question? I remember when I was younger and you asked me, what do you want to be when you grow up? At that time you knew that the answer I was giving you was impossible to accomplish, it was imaginary, and unreal, but now you ask me and you look at me with eagerness to hear what I have to say and what you hear are these fine words, I don’t know, and I don’t think I’ll ever know. You stare at me with disgust, because you assume that I should already have this figured out.

Life has changed; with all the options and opportunities I have it’s harder to settle down then it was back then. So all I can say is watch me on my journey, and don’t judge me on my decisions, it is me who has to learn from them and not you. So let me be who I am. You see how I spend my time in different classes, trying different activities, and doing community service. I’m trying to be the successful person you want me to be, but I need a break.

It’s a never ending mountain that I’ve got to climb. I keep asking myself this question why do I never get a break? Am I supposed to rush through life, and never take a look at what I’ve accomplished or been awarded for being successful at. I’m being pushed and pulled every which way and I never have the chance to reflect on my decisions in life. The only time I will get this chance is when I’m running on a low battery. When I physically don’t have the capability to go on different adventures, and experiment with the many opportunities that my world presents, I’m gonna live in regret. With one chance to see everything I’ve done I just might be able to make that decision on where I go next, but it will only happen if I just get that one space in time to not have somebody or something pressuring me.

I think of the saying from one of Martin Luther King’s speeches. I hear myself saying in my thoughts “I have a dream”. I have a dream that I can go on a million different adventures, and I have a dream that everything will be perfect in my life, but then I remember it won’t because I wasn’t given that one chance to reflect, that one chance where everything isn’t chaos. Confusion is what I am, never knowing the best way to fight my way through life. But what keeps me going is my deep belief within my soul that with one chance everything will come together.