The Treasures of Childhood

Left, right, left, right. My legs drudge on, pushing one foot in front of the other. The rough, warm sidewalk is soothing to my tired, bare feet. I glance at the black, five-inch heels in my hand, wishing they were the pink high-tops I wore as a child. I continue on down the street longing to reach the big blue house at the end of the road. The house I grew up in. 

I must look horrible. I’ve had these clothes on for over twenty-four hours, my hair is a mess from my four-hour train ride, and my eyes are swollen from their mass release of tears. I just hope my outward appearance doesn’t reflect the inward entanglement of my emotions. How did I get here? What did I do to deserve this spot? I ask myself.

Finally, I arrive at the building that molded my childhood, my one true home. My father’s car isn’t in the driveway, and I know it’s not in the garage since he converted into a workshop for his carpentry. He must be out delivering an item to a customer. I reach the front the house making my way up the porch steps and taking a seat at the top. 

I’ve strived so hard to achieve what I have. Few people have had a career like mine at the age of twenty-eight. Why did I let myself fall for a co-worker? As many wonderfully sweet and romantic guys there could have been in New York, I fell for the idiot I work with who, in the end, blamed the whole thing on me. Apparently, he told my boss that I had some kind of hopeless obsession with him and he had no way of “letting me down”. Of course, due to the fact that he’s a big shot with the company, they had no problem believing him and firing the newcomer. Aside from a lost job and broken heart, my landlady kicked me out because I didn’t meet the employment standards for the complex.

I glance down at the steps before me. I’ve spent the majority of my life running up and down these little stairs. Coming to and from school, hanging out with friends, I even lost my first tooth in this very spot. I remember it perfectly, as if it were a blue sky on a sunny day. I was barely five years old, I had just found a rock shaped like a heart and I was running to show my dad. I must have thought my legs were shorter since I tripped on the second step. I remember screaming only for a split second before realizing, “Daddy! My toof’s gone!”. The tooth itself flew into the yard. We must have spent a whole hour looking for that little piece of bone. Well, my dad says it was just fifteen minutes however, to a five year old, fifteen minutes is an hour. 

Why is it so difficult to rejoice at the little things in life now that I’m older? Why can’t something as simple as a heart-shaped rock be as treasurable as a diamond ring? Why can’t the fact that I’m living and breathing be enough to compensate for what I’ve been through over the past two days?