An Inward Reflection of the Past
MEMORIES are odd things. It’s as if the past is so much more than the present. Our brains store every tiny detail that made each childhood event perfect and globs it together into one big thought of happiness. When we think back on childhood, everything seems so much different or better. Perhaps I change. My wonder was more easily excited back then, and perhaps that is why things seemed so much more alive.
EVERYTHING seemed safe and harmless. Nothing was forbidden. The only taboo was not being adventuresome. Each tree, rock, hill, and slope was a challenge that needed to be faced, and we faced them. Those were beautiful days, filled with sunshine skies, cloudless days and humid nights. Winter would come and add a special frosty coating to the world. The stars always seemed brighter and our stones always skipped further when we were younger. The days of youth were better days.
GROWING up makes me cynical. As much as I strive to remain awestruck with the commonplace and as often as I’ve striven to be childish, the increased knowledge causes my brain to grow accustomed to life. The little spotted salamander no longer amuses me. Vines that shoot upward into infinity have long since lost their charm and power.
BUT was I even that amazed back then? I think that I enjoyed life, but not to the point of overwhelming wonder and amazement. I suppose it’s just that now I stand in the tomorrow of yesterday and look back with—what word describes it? Wonder? Remorse? Almost a sense of melancholy because I can no longer live as I once did. That’s what makes growing up so difficult. My mind still remembers things I loved and yet I cannot live it again. It is sad, but true.
I have vowed, however, that I will be a child always. I will grow in responsibility and maturity, but I will never sacrifice that sense of joy and wonder that a child possesses. Others laugh, but only because they think me foolish. They themselves are the fools, neglecting the best part of life, always trying to be an adult; and then when they are old, they fight to be a child again. How foolish.
THIS is dedicated to those who seek to revive that childhood wonder and that inward reflection of the past—the memories that make us who we are and the dreams that determine who we will become.
