you've grown so old
on watching myself and my classmates grow up
If at some point we all succumb
For goodness sake let us be young
'Cause time gets harder to outrun
And I'm nobody, I'm not done
With a cool cool breeze and dirty knees
I rest on childhood memories
We all got old at breakneck speed
Slow it down, go easy on me
- The Vaccines, Wetsuit
It’s so odd to hear a story of how my classmate was found smoking in the bathroom and was chewed out by the principal. Not the tale itself— I’m in high school so these things are bound to happen. But then I remember this is the same classmate who I watched skin his knees on the playground and tie up his hair with dozens of neon rubber bands for crazy hair day in kindergarten. And I wonder when things changed.
I don’t think I’m alone when I say I mourn my youth, even though I’m still in it. My memories of elementary school are fond, characterized by laughter, stories, and adventure. Now in high school, society has clutched onto me with an iron fist and set me onto a path. I am not allowed to stray. Even if I try, I’m bogged down by responsibility for my future and my relationships, the weight on my back making the idea of being carefree more difficult than before. But I find myself asking for the days when the responsibility didn’t weigh as heavily, when the path and world around it felt like my own to conquer.
As I watch myself grow, I watched my classmates get set on their own paths, and I find myself mourning their youths as much as my own. I hope the friend who doesn’t care for me much anymore remembers when he did. I loved the boy whose hair flopped over his eyes, drew pictures of Pokémon, and would call me for hours as we played video games. I dearly hope he knows I care, that people truly care for him. Or the boy who recently got a perm, he looks a bit silly, but his old form of self-expression was polka dots in permanent marker all over his body. He called it his chicken pox and occasionally he would switch the color of the Sharpie he used.
Sometimes I wonder if my elementary school classmates are alike in my wistfulness for the yesteryear. I’ve watched them embrace the idea of being a “rebellious” teenager, whooping around in their cars with their sparkling new drivers licenses, smoking in the bathroom stalls, and staying out late hours of the night. Their newfound freedom is what they crave, and they grasp onto it and exhaust it for all it can give.
Do they ever miss the days when friendship was so simple, and to play twice together meant you were best friends for life? We would race to the playground at recess, and our biggest concern was who got the most time on the swing because perhaps one person had counted too quickly. Our days were filled with boxes of crayons, colorful classrooms, and snack times. We were storytellers, artists, and explorers— the adventures we created were only limited by our imagination.
But even with this teenage freedom we’ve accumulated, my world feels so much more limited. As a writer, I could say I’m still a storyteller, artist, and explorer, but the worlds I create with my words are somewhat out of obligation. I love posting on Substack, but it’s also a responsibility. I size my work up to similar writers and I hope that people will like it as much as I like theirs. My passion remains as such, but it is also meant to be my future. I mourn the days when my imagination and passion didn’t mean as much, and I was free to utilize them in a more carefree manner.
I miss the days when I got to see my classmates’ own imagination and passion. Entering junior year, my classrooms are filled with career-oriented peers. I scroll through their LinkedIns, and I wonder if they still have time for themselves with the internships, clubs, and dozens of opportunities they’ve taken. There's a constant pressure to perform, to excel, to be more than we were the day before. I’ll give it to them— perhaps this is their passion. I’m proud to watch my classmates grow into the adults they want to become.
Elementary school is days past for my classmates and me. And one day, high school will be too. I am privileged to see where my classmates are now. Their image for me will always be tinged with their younger self. I will see the boy in class sulking with his AirPod in, pretending to not care about anything in the world, but I’ll remember how he jumped up with vigor to announce he lost his tooth in the middle of a math lesson. I will watch a girl insult others in the locker room, and hope the girl who played catch with me when she saw I was sitting alone is still in there.
I realize that in ten years or so, I’ll be working, and remembering the days when my classmates and I were teenagers. I’ll miss the days of my naïve adolescence, and the freedom I was granted without worrying about the issues that come with adulthood. My longing for the days of childhood is mourning the loss of the person we were back then, unburdened by expectations and responsibilities that arrive with growing up.