Hindsight

Molly Popper
Sep 4, 2018 · 4 min read

Playground

I remember flying down the green towering ramp and I remember feeling the grains of sand on my legs, I remember looking up through the trees and seeing the shining sun reaching out to me. I remember every Friday we would venture to the magical castle that stood tall in the middle of the desert; we would play tag on the grass, we would race our scooters around the concrete, we would bury each other in the sand, and we would play Green Light by the lamp post. I remember going back to their condo. The one with orange walls and popcorn ceiling where I would spend my weekends with my second family, although back then my cousins felt more like my first family. When I relive those memories I remember how fun it was to look at the popcorn ceiling and how nice it felt to put my feet in the sand, but back then I always thought of how I wasn’t supposed to climb the stairs to touch the ceiling or how I had to pick out all the sticks and leaves out of the sand before I could sit down. Now, I wish I spent more time enjoying what I had. Appreciating how I could be under that ceiling and still imagine. Cherishing how I could always go down to that park and experience new adventures, even hearing how they would say my name, or savoring how I could soak up the golden sun without thinking.


The Beach

Every summer my family and I fly to Cape Cod, Massachusetts to visit my dad’s family, and every single sunny day there we walk down to Mayflower Beach. We always have a magical time there filled with amazing excitements. Surprisingly, at that beach my favorite part is once we’re done gliding through the crystal blue water and done hitting the whiffle balls so hard we watch them turn into rockets streaking away across the ocean. It’s when at the end of the day when we all collapse on the blanket. It always seems to be the right size; not too vast where you feel alone, yet not so cramped where you can’t breathe. It’s quiet at that time of day after all the adventures we created. Everyone is drained and fulfilled at the same time. So I can pick through the noise and hear the tiny waves crashing against the shore, taste the salt coming from the ocean, and squeeze the uncluttered warm sand through my toes, but most importantly I can feel the fading rays of the sunset. Those moments are priceless and when they pass, for a split second I remember that everything eventually goes away, but only for a split second, because I’m reminded that only the things you forget and neglect are truly gone. As long as I remember and cherish these moments they will never leave me. Then I rest and feel the radiating warmth of the sun of my face.


Road

No one knows what the future brings. It’s a bag full of mysteries that can never be opened until you’re there. No one knows if they’ll end up living in a cluttered immense city or if they’ll live surrounded by rolling green hills in the country. To some people, the future is a promising blank canvas that they yearn to fill with bright new colors, but to others, it’s something uncertain and inescapable. I on the other hand clearly see it as a dim long road, which hopefully leads to somewhere nice. See the only thing that is guaranteed is the struggle, the struggle to achieve whatever dream I decide on. Who’s to say that I’ll ever be able to reach that magnificent sunset at the end of the road? What if that road just keeps on going and going and never ends. What if there just isn’t any more time or opportunities to lay down and feel the sun on my face. Once you move on there’s no going back. When I get on that road all I’ll have are the memories of my past adventures with no assurance I can make new ones, but then I think it doesn’t matter because when I look back my hindsight will always be engulfed in an unrealistic glow. Just like how it is now.

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