Self-Titled
When I was younger, I used to live near the sea. I would travel to the beach every weekend and spend ripe summer mornings there watching the sun creep over the horizon as the world awoke. I would listen to the call of the seagulls soaring over the gulf, greeting me hello or perhaps just begging for a scrap of my breakfast. I would bury my toes in the sand and relish the feeling of the earth beneath my feet, arms outstretched as if I were reaching out to give the world a hug (though it has never seemed to hug me back). I suppose I lived in a state of childish naivety, believing that one day my embrace would be returned.
A few months ago, I revisited the same beach for the first time since I moved away. I woke up with the sun, rode my bike down the same cobbled path, and stood in the waves, arms outstretched once again. I felt a tad stupid standing there waiting for something that would never come; I could’ve sworn the seagulls were laughing at my foolishness. Yet, there I stood, for gods know how long, peering into the crystalline depths, expecting…ah, I don’t know what I was expecting. I was convinced that if I stood there long enough I could figure it out.
Before long my arms grew tired, however, and I reluctantly let my hands fall to my sides again before pedaling away, a strange sense of disappointment aching in my chest. I suppose I thought it was unusual because I had never felt upset about the outcome of my time by the sea; I would simply leave excited to visit again next time. It sounds strange, but that day was the first time that it really hit me that I’m getting older. Up until then, nothing really registered.–The birthdays, the school dances, the parties—they all felt distant and surreal, like I was watching myself from a third-person perspective.
However, that day it hit me like a slap in the face. I’m growing up. I’m moving on from my childhood. I’ll never get those sunny, naive beach days with my mother back.
It’s kind of funny how when you’re a kid, you spend your days fantasizing about growing older. ‘When I grow up, I’ll be an astronaut and go to bed whenever I want to and eat all of the ice cream I want to and mommy and daddy won’t be able to stop me!’ You know? I wasted my childhood waiting for adulthood, and now that it’s hit me, I would give anything to go back. I think that in today’s society, the idea that we must mature faster than our elders is perpetrated on us at a young age. We’re told that we must get a job by 16, go to college at 18, find our career before we’ve had a chance to find ourselves. I’ve never understood that logic. When did it become normal for us to decide who we are at such a young age? When did it become expected to simply survive, rather than live? I don’t think I can endure that. I owe it to my younger self to break the cycle. I’m meant for so much more than monotony.
Part of me will always have that childlike innocence I used to have. Some part of me will always return to the ocean and fling my arms out, relishing the taste of salt on my tongue and the feeling of the waves lapping against my kneecaps. The same part of me will always find hope, find home, in the call of the seagulls and the way the wind pushes my hair back from my face and pinkens my cheeks. There’s nothing wrong with that.
Similarly, there is nothing wrong with you. It’s easy to feel like there is–when you laugh a little too freely, say a joke a little too loudly, let your hair down a little too often. It’s always been easy to convince yourself that you’re too old, too mature to be acting like this. It’s time to straighten up… right?
I couldn’t disagree more. Laugh loudly! Dance in the rain, run outside barefoot, attempt to give the world a hug with the same foolish naivety you had as a child. Don’t let yourself lose the joy, the happiness, that life used to be all about. You can grow older and still hang onto your seven-year old self. Don’t ever let anyone tell you that you can’t.
