When I was young

Photo by Paulina Šleiniūtė on Unsplash

When I was young, my mother wanted me to become a priest.

"It's easier to get to heaven," she said.

"And when I die, you can ask God to send me straight there."

When I was young, I thought happiness meant a family of your own. 

But when my mother died, that changed. I finally understood.

I couldn't imagine inflicting the same pain and grief I endured on my own child.

When I was young, I was told that my father died because he forgot to breathe in his sleep.

But when my mother realized I was old enough to understand, I learned from her the truth: Yes, people die in their sleep; Some forget to breathe, while others choose not to wake up.

When I was young, death was a place people go to visit---a room with an entrance but without any exit.

"Your father is on a vacation," my mother would say.

"When he'll be returning, well, I don't know which day.

When I was young, it was easier to love in reckless abandon.

After heartbreaks, falling outs, and betrayals, love became a commodity afforded only by the fearless and the stubborn.

When I was young, the world was a utopia in a snow globe, which I peered with childlike wonder through a magical kaleidoscope.

Love made the world go round.

Parents could kiss their children's pain away.

Everything was always good in the world.

Evil would always be defeated by the goodness in every people's heart.

But now, the world is on fire, the seas are rising, people are looking for other planets to conquer, and the internet is causing so much social collapse.

So now I find myself revisiting those years of innocence, where I'd get to wear my rose-colored glasses once again and view life differently, before adulthood welcomed reality and brought with it all those disillusionments.

Oh how I'd give anything to be young and carefree again---to go back in time when I was young.