its getting cold out. The weather is windy and brisk. The air stings when you go outside after sitting in the cozy dorms. The leaves have almost completely fallen from the trees. The wind carries them around in little tornadoes, whipping them up into the sky.
Three were small children playing in the quad today. I imagined being a kid again. How big the world seemed. How care free they all were. Screaming and chasing each other. One little boy ran completely to the other side of the quad. The bunch of kids huddled and watched as he ran off in the distance. They began screaming for him, “Come back! You’re too far away!”, and looking around for an adult to intervene. He knew what he was doing. He wanted adventure. He wanted to test the limits.
They all had miniature replicas of big-people clothing. There little sneaks. Their big fluffy winter jackets that were too big and uncomfortable to zip up hung open on their shoulders. They ran around like it was their cape.
I tried remembering when I was a child. It’s a sad feeling. It tugs at my heart. The innocence lost. How early did I lose it? When all things were never as they seemed. Everything is much more now. We complicate everything with our feelings. There is a construct of past interpretations and opinions that shield us from hurt or anything uncomfortable. Instead of screaming and running free, we live in a shell. Rarely testing the boundary’s of normality. We’re comfortable with the minimal thoughts that bump into reason and effort as our means of justified communication. So it seems anyway.
When I was young everything was an adventure. Everything was new and had to be figured out. I thought I could fly if I ran fast enough. When I grow up, I thought to myself, and my arms and my legs are a little longer, I’ll be able to run fast enough and flap hard enough to take off.
William Dare 