Growth measured in experiences: Part 1 (Intro and youth)

Who were we?

Were we big time heroes on horse back and princesses? Or were we, in all actuality, the small children that our God created us to be?

We find ourselves longing for things from youth that we don't even remember completely or at all for that matter.

We sit with friends and talk about running through open fields and along sunny beaches and through sprinkler ridden back yards. We long so desperately for the simplicity of these times and the emotions that they bred from our souls and hearts. But then the reality sets in that rent needs to be paid in two days and that you are sixty-dollars short.

The reality that you are twenty-six and you still don't have your shit together.

The reality that your parents are becoming the age that grandparents are supposed to be.

The reality that, in reality, reality sucks.

But is the recalling of a youth experienced in full such a bed thing? Is it a negative upon ones heart to look back on things that were, in the simplest of terms, perfect?

Perfect on this occasion clearly being seen through the eyes of the beholder.

But when the eyes of the beholder are capable of seeing a dripping strawberry sno-cone as perfection, shouldn't we ever so diligently try to recall these times? Shouldn't we desire these memories over the majority of others?

Childhood is so fleeting.

When we are engulfed in it we dress up like our Mommies and Daddies and pray at night that we grow up to be just like them. Then we get a bit older and we find that we want to grow up faster, not to be more like Mom and Dad, but so that we can set our own curfews and drive our own cars and make our own rules. Then we get a bit older and we have the self-set curfew and the car and the self-made rules and these things are the epitome of greatness. And then, when we are sitting alone in our apartment on the edge of our bed with our self-made rules and freedoms, we find ourselves longing for Mommy and Daddy and the comfort they provided. The comfort of the rules and the regulations and the curfews.

And we drive the road home.

Children are a silly thing. They will spend hours contemplating a plan on how to get their skateboard out of the storm drain but could care less about whether or not they would eat that night.

They...

We.

We would run around for hours, not noticing that the sun had set, sweat drenched having the time of our lives. Little did we know...

Little did those tiny beings know, those innocent little babies, that a day was coming when rent would be due in two days and that they would be sixty dollars short with no help coming. That Mom would not respond to the chemo and that Dad would never fully recover. That, when you did turn twenty-six, you wouldn't have all your shit together.