Thoughts

The end of an era

I never actually thought about my childhood the way people often remember it. And it’s a bit weird, or perhaps uncommon, to consider the things I do, so easily disregarded in the face of more complex problems.

Being a child is usually used to describe a time where things were a lot simpler, and I sometimes wonder if I didn’t waste my years thinking about the future and what it could offer, instead of focusing in the present. It would be a lie to say that I don’t regret many of my decisions as a kid, but it would also be an unfair judgment, almost cruel, to belittle myself for being innocent and naïve.

As many do, and I am no exception, I wanted to grow and have the ability to decide for myself, to be able to do and not be questioned. To be free of rules and adults that looked at me with condescending resignation. And it was that, among other things, what prompted me to look at others with disdain for being what they were.

I grew up too fast and too slow. Being extremely mature for some things, going as far as to surprising the adults I so wanted to impress, and being incredibly childish for others, gaining their straining smiles in response to my behaviour. So I was left in the middle of the spectrum, living none of both experiences to the fullest for fear of rejection.

I believe I lost many chances, and missed countless opportunities. Still, I would never go back to undo my mistakes. I still haven’t met one person that after being asked “what would you do if you could change one thing of your past?”, had answered with “nothing”. And it’s a curious thought, to want to change something when you don’t even know the consequences of your actions.

I speak of regret in the sense that sometimes it feels a little embarrassing, or even mortifying to remember the things I said or did. But I would never change them, for it would mean resigning to the person I am now and everything I built since then.

Being a kid means not knowing and experimenting first hand what it means to live. It means no responsibilities and the disregarding attitude of not caring enough. It means to do things just for the sake of doing them, to make friends to forget them the next day, to say the things you’re not supposed to, and to know more than people expect you to. Because the innocent eyes of a child can be deceiving in a way a politician will never be able to emulate. And it’s perhaps that innocence and the promise of harmlessness what sells them short in the end.

Nobody remembers the hardships, in lieu of the bigger picture, all I am met with are good memories and wistful, bordering in nostalgic, remarks. It’s a little saddening to see the fall of understanding as we edge closer to the end of the easier days, to our limited childhood. For my part, I remember fragments and bits of how it felt and how complicated, even at a young age, living was.

Feeling pain for the first time, learning the difference between the things you can say bluntly and the things that require a bit more of tact, falling and getting up again. The start of recognition as you learn your flaws and you’re introduced to a place where judgement is a lot more common than a compliment with no ill intent. It is perhaps not as tragic as it should be portrayed when you think about it from the perspective of someone who already lived it, and this is why we forget.

Maybe it isn’t a tragedy, something as serious or bad as the problems you have to face as you get older, but I believe that the death of innocence deserves a space in our self-pity, a moment of consideration and understanding.

It may not change anything in the end, childhood will always be considered a golden era in the story of our lives, a happy moment in the big scheme of things. No worries or problems, a perfect pocket of memories stored forever to be a prize of consolation.

Stories are written by the victorious, as someone once said.

So let your story be written by yourself, and paint your death with gold.