Grieving Lost Moments

One of the hardest parts of going through this growth process has been grieving my childhood and adolescence. I look back at those years and see so many moments I wish could be salvaged or rectified. So many moments that could've been different if the people around me recognized their toxic behaviours, if I had the tools or the words to say to help myself out of these situations. But every once in a while, I grieve for the moments I have not yet experienced that I wonder will ever happen, and some I know I will never experience.

I grieve for a version of myself that can be touched. That doesn't recoil from hands and fingers. A version of myself that has held a hand until sweat pools between fingers. A version of myself that has been touched for the sake of touch, exploration, of learning a body other than someone else's.

I grieve for a version of myself that had young puppy love. That felt enamoured by everything someone did with reckless abandon because she didn't know better, because there wasn't better. Who stayed up past bedtime texting, and snuck out behind her parents back to see a boy just figuring out facial hair. A boy who said really honest things because they didn't know how to lie or manipulate yet. 

I grieve for a version of myself that feels confident in friend groups. Who went through all of the trials and tribulations of losing and gaining friends at an age where they didn't seem so integral to my identity. When they were girls at slumber parties, who swapped notes between classes and not the people replacing the family I wish I had grown with. When friends were people you met at swimming lessons and for some reason never saw again but you always remember the things they taught you, the way they laughed, how they complimented your bathing cap. 

I grieve for a version of myself who got to move away from home at a too young age, be reckless while trying to get an education. Who came home from exams hiding hickys, with decent grades and new experiences. 

And maybe no one really gets these experiences. Maybe life isn't a Nicholas Sparks movie, or an American sitcom about awkward teenage love. 

But I can't be touched without breaking out into a sweat. And I don't know a love that is both intimate and honest. I love the friends I have, but a lot of my insecurities in these friendships stem from never having tried before. Never having been in this position before. Of keeping your friends secrets, of being available, open and honest always. I wasn't allowed to leave for university, meaning I left at 22 when I should have (maybe) started getting my shit together and only then decided to start the party phase. It is difficult to feel like you are almost thirty and yet simultaneously still sixteen. I am constantly torn between wanting to be this adult version of myself who has experiences under her belt, stable money and a stable job, and this younger version of myself who is reckless and a child. I believe there is a time and place for childlike wonder, and I don't believe I should lose my sense of curiosity and my unbridled passion and excitement. I believe I am starting to gauge when and where these appropriate reactions can live, and I hope to find someone who will let me freak out in happiness over one good kiss and the fact that that memory will live on as a happy one, finally.

I am grateful for what I have. I will always wonder what I have lost, but I look forward constantly to the future and what it may hold.

XOXO,

Cropberry