Growing up a Little at a Time, Then all at Once How I’m learning to not take my childhood for granted

Growing up a Little at a Time,

How I’m learning to not take my time for granted while healing my inner child.

One of my core memories that tends to revisit my mind the most often was wanting to grow up. Being the little sister to the coolest older sister, I grew up chasing her shoes, and always feeling like my feet were never big enough to fill what she had done at that age. This memory is pressing even now that I am in my 20s and have begun my own life where I am claiming my own identity. However, now that I am finally the age that I always wanted to be when I was growing up, I so desperately wish I could rewind the past 10 years.

Presence has always been an important word in my life, how I would fill up the space around me and what I would do with the life I was given. Presence is tricky because with no end date known to me, life continues on whether I enjoy the presence I have created or not. In my mind, existing is only worth it if my presence is worth it— if I am doing enough, knowing enough and just how much space I truly take up in the world. This thought process has dented my wellbeing overtime, causing me to never feel like I’m meeting my younger self’s expectations.

The inner turmoil of being in your 20s is exploring your new found freedom while discovering that life isn’t like how you imagined it would be when you were 10. The hard pill to swallow that has taken a few years to convince myself of is, life won’t be like how I expected it to pan out. There was no way I could’ve expected that a worldwide pandemic would hit my freshman year of college and take two years away from my “perfect college experience” I had dreamt up as a kid. I could’ve never imagined the pitfalls that I would go through and have to recover from. When I was 10, life was all ahead of me and everything was going to be OK.

But when I was 10, I could’ve never anticipated the friendships I would make that would help me build the bridges to keep going. I would have never guessed the passion I have found for life and the stability to know that my presence always matters no matter how much space I think I might be taking up.

There are not many things for certain in this world. One thing we can always count on is time. Time will move on, one second at a time, and nothing will stop that. However, I am learning it’s about how I fill that time. I don’t need to always be worried about filling up the space around me, pleasing others, enjoying myself at all times or anything that I may think I should be doing. Forcing myself to be in the present, regardless if I’m enjoying that moment or not is easier said than done, but hey, here’s to trying and not being torn up if I fail a few times on the way.

Then all at Once.

By: Faith Bollom