To Kelsey

On childhood

To Kelsey,

Remember when we were in Ms. Linda’s preschool class together? You liked purple and I liked blue. You had two cats and I wanted a dog. We both liked The Rainbow Fish. We smiled when it rained outside and never cared about the muddy water seeping through our Skechers. We would laugh it off and walk around barefoot for the rest of the day. We hated to take naps and loved snack time. I don’t really remember what our shared interests or goals were—or even if we had any reasons for being friends except the fact that we were. I only remember having my first sleepover at your house. You were with me on my first trip to the principal’s office. You were my first best friend.

I’m sorry I left you in the middle of the year with Ms. Jones for another school. She was horrible and wouldn’t let me “laminate” my hand-written book by covering the front cover with long strips of Scotch tape—the shiny kind that feels smooth under your fingers. She said I was wasting materials (I shudder to think that I would say the same now). I’m sorry I didn’t keep in touch after I left even though we traded bracelets engraved with “BFF.” I think part of it was due to the fact that we were four years old and we didn’t have Facebook and iPhones back then.

How are you doing? Did you move away or are you still living in that house with the large basement and dusty treadmill in that room downstairs? Do you still like to eat Nilla Wafers? Do you still wear your hair in one long braid with butterfly barrettes on the sides? In my mind, you have never grown up. You are, as I left you, four and careless, sitting next to me during circle time.

Remember racing out to that playground everyday after lunch? We would line up by the door, waiting to be let out into the fresh air and sunshine. Remember how we used to cut that line so we could be the first ones on the swing set? The one with two blue seats faded in such a way that only swing seats can—worn down from years of use and rain. The seats were too high and even our tiptoes couldn’t touch the bark dust beneath us, so we would have to hop up onto the seat in a way that would start the movement of the swings as we readjusted ourselves. We gained momentum by pumping our legs up and down, stretched out straight when swinging forward and tucked in when swinging back as we climbed higher and higher, daring each other to go high enough for our swings to flip over the gray, metal bar above. We never did manage to do that. Our heads tilted back as we swung forward, gazing upward as the blue sky filled up every corner of our vision until the buildings and trees faded away and we could see nothing but the color blue—as if we had been swallowed by the sky itself. The world seemed limitless and I truly thought life couldn’t get any better than this. I remember laughing as we swung back and forth, with nothing to worry about except how much time was left until we would be forced to relinquish our seats for the people waiting in line.

Remember when we used to play pretend? We were always orphans or our parents were always off on vacation because no one wanted be the mom and none of us would be willing to play the boy—ugh, gross. I was always the oldest sibling and played the age of fifteen, which at the time, was the most sophisticated age I thought you could be without being boring like my older cousins who were always “too tired” to play tag or hide-and-seek with me. Sometimes, we would pretend to be spies and run around carrying out missions to save the world. Nothing could stop us and everything—even magic—was entirely within the realm of possibility.

In a way, I’m kind of glad you don’t know me now. If you have frozen my four year-old self in your mind as I have done to you, then let’s leave it at that. That’s not to say that I don’t like the person I am today or that I haven’t done anything I’m proud of since I last saw you. On the contrary, I’d like to believe I’ve come a long way from convincing myself that many pages made a book and thinking that it was okay to wear my hair in a low ponytail.

But, there is something beautiful about being a kid and I’d like at least one person to remember me that way—relaxed, careless and hopeful. I’m afraid that your image of four year-old me wouldn’t like the person I am today, on the cusp of real adulthood. The years of being under the harsh, fluorescent lights of classrooms and away from the playground have weathered my once baby-soft skin into a kind of leather. I use words like “realistically” and “ideally” in the same sentence and it’s not redundant because they don’t mean the same thing anymore. I read The Great Gatsby for the underlying meaning and turn giddy when I come across the green light and the yellow car instead of reading The Babysitters Club solely because Kristy and Mary-Anne have a crush on the same boy.

I have limits now. My limit for finishing homework is 5:30 a.m. My limit is 140 characters on Twitter and number of likes on Facebook. My ability to do anything depends on the amount of coffee I’ve drank that day. Oh, that’s another thing, I like coffee now—did I tell you that? The bitterness no longer causes my nose to scrunch up and my tongue to burn. Instead, its familiar taste brings me comfort and pulls me back from the abyss of the craziness that is apparently, real life. Is this what it means to be grown up?

I think before I speak now. I watch what I eat. I feel guilty when I’m not doing work, and then when I try to do work, I feel guilty because I procrastinate. Life used to not be filled with this much guilt—the wrong kind that isn’t because you said something mean to your friend or because you snuck an extra piece of candy from the receptionist’s bowl, but because you feel that you should be doing something more productive and worthwhile with your time. I think it all started when we learned to tell time and the clock started counting down instead of up. Times turned into schedules, and schedules turned into structure. No longer were our days governed by when we felt hungry or tired.

I miss you a lot Kelsey and I will always look back on our memories together with fondness and nostalgia.

But that’s all they will ever be: memories.

Even if we somehow found each other now and returned back to that spot on the playground with the swings and monkey bars, it won’t be there. It won’t be endless and limitless. It won’t be blue skies and forever. I wish I had known to cherish it more at the time, but then again, I think that’s what made it beautiful: not knowing. We’ll always have something special and I hope you are doing well, wherever you are. Say hi to your parents for me—I would do it myself, but I don’t remember your last name.

Love,

Christiana