Childhood

Most of us find ourselves missing our childhood in one way or the other as we grow up. I don’t mean to sound clingy, but growing up does take a toll on everyone, I guess. Looking at the childhood photos or may be a small baby, going through all the years all over again in an instant and trying to figure out what exactly went wrong. Being amazed by how much you have been through and came out stronger than ever, at the same time feeling a bit anxious and stupid for not having done something remarkable in so long a time. Imagining the directions in which your life could have possibly gone and comparing it with the one in which it actually did go. Call it mediocrity or the inability of humans to appreciate things in life, but most grownups aren’t really satisfied with their journey to adulthood.
Kudos to all the life lessons you get growing up. Be it travelling alone, taking care of yourself, managing time and everything, gaining endurance, learning the ways of this highly manipulative, profit-oriented, self-centered world. But all this at the cost of innocence and purity and everything else nice that we carried within ourselves as a child! I don’t imply for the fairy tale part to be true or carry on, but isn’t there still a part that wishes you didn’t have to grow up and go through this exhaustive, hopeless and sad lessons learning process? Isn’t there still this wish that the world worked with simplicity, just how your childhood-self wanted it to? Isn’t there still that tiny wish that you didn’t have to deal with all the politics and the mind games?
We feel burdened as we grow up,  not because we carry a lot of responsibilities but because we don’t really speak our mind and heart just to get along and end up feeling heavy-hearted or alone.

What if growing up only meant learning to cross roads or learning to drive a vehicle or learning science and how the world works or being able to remember the words and the grammar rules of different languages or hearing all the historical tales and turning into a courageous, intelligent, responsible, wonderful, loving and lovable person? What if growing up didn’t turn us into anything as double-standard or two-faced or hypocrite or profit-oriented or manipulative or selfish or mediocre, that it actually kind of does? Why does growing up rob us of our childhood innocence and purity of heart that we are born with? Where do all the carefree smiles and the hopefulness and simplicity of the life go as we grow up? What’s with hard hard-heartedness and all the complicacy we go through as we grow up?
As a kid, everyone around us wishes for us to grow into an amazing, wonderful adult. But do we? Or even did they?
May be we need to try to keep the nice things about ourselves intact as we grow up and growing up might turn out to be a little less painful and disappointing.