I’m a 10 year old in a 25 year old’s body. I start celebrating Christmas in September and love nothing more than a homemade grilled cheese and a warm hug from my mom in the home I grew up in. I daydream about the street that I had my first kiss on, a street that was full of the sweet innocence of a 15 year old never knowing she would learn so much more from boys that kissed her with so much less. I miss this street and the innocence that gripped me with everything it had. I miss not knowing more than I could handle.
I know I’m not alone in this. We are growing up.
As many of my friends seem to be all-consumed by the details of things like their weddings (Nothing wrong with this.. it’s just not relatable for me at this point), I am sitting here on my computer, typing the words that may or may not fully paint a picture of me longing for the sounds of my childhood. The hum of the nighttime highway after a trip with my family, long before I could drive; the sound of my mothers voice, comforting me with words through moments I’m sure she had no clue I was listening to. But I was listening. And I already knew I would one day wish for that moment to be given back to me.
There isn't a day that I don't.
I have always had a tendency to live in the past; it is one thing on a very short list of things that I wish I knew how to control. Logically, I realize I will never be woken up by my brother on Christmas morning with the excitement that we both shared when we were kids, nor will my biggest worry in life ever seem as ridiculous as I’m sure it was when I was a young girl.
As hard as it is to accept, everybody has to grow up. It’s one of those difficult, hard to love facts, something completely inevitable, something we have to embrace.
Is holding onto these stories, images, sounds, memories unhealthy? Not a chance. To me, parts of my past, the love of my family, the air of my childhood is my home, my safety net, the place that will continue to help form the beautiful, warm, enchanting stepping stones to my future.