Realizing that your childhood is over is a hard pill to swallow. I’ve found myself thinking about it a lot recently. I’ve also been finding myself worrying about the fact that maybe I am so focused on missing the past and wishing it was the present that I’m not really enjoying the present for what it is. I wonder if in the future, I will be upset that I didn’t live more in the moment today. I feel like I’m not living out my high school teenage life because I have been dwelling on my childhood so much. I miss the simpleness of being a kid and not worrying about my grades or what people think of me. But I also want to enjoy being young and not having all of the responsibility that adults do while also having a sense of independence.
I think that at every age it is hard to come to terms with time moving on. When did playdates turn into hanging out with friends? When did I stop playing imaginary games and laying on the couch every night while my dad read to me? When did my picture books turn into novels? When did my toys turn into makeup? When did I start caring about what I look like and what people think about me?
When I was a kid, I used to play in the woods behind my house with my best friends, and we would build forts. I remember the last time we played in them, but I had no idea that it would be the last time. When I was a kid, I never thought it would end. I thought I would play in the forts forever and eat peanut butter and jelly sandwiches in my play house for the rest of my life, but suddenly everything was different. One day, I went from never being in my room to always being in my room. I went from playing with toys to playing on my phone. I went from never wearing makeup to only feeling pretty when I have it on. I went from asking for legos for Christmas to asking for clothes.
Growing up is a difficult thing to realize and accept, but I think in order to actually focus on the present, try to bring things from your childhood into your day to day life, whether it be listening to songs that you used to listen to or doing a coloring page. Recently, I’ve been trying to look back fondly on happy memories of my childhood instead of despairing that those days are done. I find myself often listening to the songs on my dads old ipod and enjoying the fact that I’m happy my childhood happened the way it did because it has shaped me into the person I am today.
