Growing Up

I don’t remember how I felt when I was 5.

I know this is not an uncommon thing. We tend to forget what is simple, what is  plain. And What is more simple than being a kid? You play to learn, you learn to play, you look to the world with wonder, fueled by an unrelenting source of curiosity. The world seemed simple, but you still wished to discover it.

I don’t remember how it felt when I was 10.

There are plenty of things I know about that age. I know I had just started middle school, and I’m sure that I was nervous. I know I discovered new friends, and I’m sure I felt great. But These are just the things I presume, guesses based on a timeline. A timeline so separate from my life that, these things presumed feel as though I am assuming that they were mine. Like my life is not my possession.

I don’t remember how it felt when I was 15.

I know this sounds crazy because it was only two years ago. I can no longer catagorize this time as childhood, blaming the fuzziness of my youth for my poor recollection. Still, it feels as though it was a universe ago. My face is the same, dotted with the same stars. My friends have rotated around me, some falling out of orbit, most still sharing my gravitational pull. Despite this, my being is different. The nebulas that once made me up have changed, formed new galaxies in the parts of myself that I have discovered, unable to retrieve the memories of what they were before.

I hope I remember how it feels when I am 20.

There must be some secret to remembering myself. Some key or trick  that is still unknown. Or maybe, there is just unknown. Maybe, I have never been known. IF I am truly, my being, shouldn’t I know my history. If am to build a future, do I not need the plans of the dreams half finished? I will never know the answer.

Tomorrow, I won’t  remember how it felt to live today.