Monday, November 9, 2009

Childhood

There's always a trade. Always a sacrifice you've got to make. Take one or the other, not both.

We grew up wishing to be older. We thought "Hey, it will be fun to be adults." We dreamed of the freedom, the late nights, the ability to go anywhere and everywhere. We had no true worries. Money was something that was infinite, despite whatever our parents said (they just wanted it for themselves!). Sickness was a cough, those days where we felt like throwing up or blowing our noses out the window, and we got to stay home. Fights didn't include words that would scar us for weeks to come. The biggest hurt was falling off something, like a bike. We never knew just how lucky we were.

And now we've got so much less, but so much more. We've got more freedom, sure, but there's so much that seems to go wrong with it. Scarier things lurk in the dark than the monsters under the bed. What ifs cloud our minds whether we want them to or not. Grades have a lot more meaning. No longer can we be anything we want to be. Sickness takes on a whole new meaning. fights cost us friends and sleep. A broken heart competes with everything else for the biggest hurt.

Are we lucky still? Are we not realizing how lucky we really are, just as when we were kids?


Childhood is measured out by sounds and smells and sights, before the dark hour of reason grows. ~John Betjeman, Summoned by Bells

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