The rain hits my cheeks, drizzles on my hands, and kisses my feet. It is a very light rain with a slight whirling wind that makes the fall leaves dance around me. I am walking home from school. Three young boys have made a fort out of a pile of leaves, they are playing a game, the rain does not seem to phase them.
It is at these times when I wish I were still a child. I’ve realized that as seasons change I change as well. I am still young by many standards, but I have noticed that I am older in many ways. I wish sometimes that I can revisit childhood. Childhood for me was freedom, it was wrestling with my brothers and playing princess’ with my best friend Rach Slocum. Childhood was running inside from the bus, rushing through math, and spelling homework so I could go out to play kick ball or kill the carrier with the neighborhood kids. It was licking ice cream, snow ball fights, and racing my dog Sam to never, never land, then laying down in the woods, panting harmonious breaths.
But life and time must keep moving. Sometimes that is so hard to accept. You lose people, pets, and places that you loved with all your might. Sometimes you feel you can not grasp this concept. Why must I get older? Why can’t I stay here forever? I believe we all know the answer and there are many who wish they didn’t, because it would mean that they were somehow letting what they knew so well, go. We must grow to become better people, we must grow so that others can enjoy what we enjoyed, we must be there for the young as the young spirit must be there to comfort the more experienced.
We can smile at a child because we remember being as they were: seekers of adventure. A child knows the true value of life and sometimes as we grow we lose that important lesson.
In seven and a half months I will graduate from Peekskill High School. It is a place that has become my home away from home. In many ways I will be sad to leave and in several others I can see that it is something to look forward to. I am not scared but I am reluctant to say the least. It is strange to think that time has moved so quickly and I wish for it to move slower.
There are many memories to hold in this life, some make me sad and many put a smile on my face. There have been times where I felt completely alone and others where the gleefulness in heart seemed too overbearing to hold. I loved many people, some I have lost, and I have hated very little.
Maybe people are so reluctant to change because it is something different, something they don’t know, and if losing something you know, something you love, means going on without them, it can make one feel alone. But I know that growing is a part of life, that sometimes you must lose things, people, places, that you love to become a better person.
If you can carry memories with you, then you haven’t lost anything. If ever you become melancholy that things have changed, just go out and take a walk. I’m certain at least one young spirit will be there to remind you what life is all about. Things change but a child’s spirit will always stay the same. They’ll always be there playing kick ball or building forts out of autumn leaves. They’ll be there to remind us that we are not old, just more experienced, for a child is the life that lives within us. And in that sense, when you really think about it, we never lose our childhood, we simply grow into better beings, that child-like spirit was our foundation and will remain with us for eternity.