Goodbyes

Closing a chapter in your life can be bittersweet, or it can be exhilarating, but it can also be obscured by the events that turned that last page…

Such is the case with me. Due to circumstances far outside the realm of my control, i left the innocence and relative feelings of safety that come with childhood far too early. At the time, i had no concept of what closing a chapter of your life even meant, much less realize that that was what was happening.

I was a precocious little girl – an old soul, my grandmother would say. perhaps that’s why i didn’t notice my childhood waving at me, teary eyed, as i walked away. Of course i didn’t notice something as “insignificant” as my childhood – there were more important things that needed to be done to help my family. I could get back to playing and imagining after, when everything was back to normal… right? Wrong. oh, how very wrong. the blissful days of running around in a sun shower, Saturday morning cartoons, and playing hide and seek or Miss Mary Mack all disappeared in the blink of an eye, and I didn’t even know it had happened.

Later in life, i had to deal with and process this goodbye, and it was hard. Probably one of the hardest things i’ve ever had to do for myself. Even years later, i was wholly unprepared for it and the emotions that came with it, most of which i had thought i had buried deep enough that I’d never have to deal with them again. Oh, the charming ignorance of childhood…