Tag: Childhood

What we long for and what we can never obtain

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Everyone wants something. Whether they can have it or not is irrelevant. People will always want something, and sometimes the fact that it’s impossible to obtain makes whatever it is all the more alluring. Sometimes others have the things we want but can’t have, and we become jealous of them for it. This is known as envy.

Envy is defined as a feeling of discontented longing brought on by someone else’s possessions or qualities. It’s actually one of the seven deadly sins, but despite that everyone feels envy at one time or another in their life. Most people like to pretend that they don’t envy something or someone in their life, but that’s not good. If you can’t admit to jealousy, it will quickly turn into resentment.

On the other hand it’s just as dangerous to succumb to envy. People who do this often commit heinous crimes to pursue what they want. It’s in this sense that greed and envy work hand in hand. People will lie, cheat, steal, and murder to get what they want, and I think thats the scariest thing about envy.

People can direct their envy differently. Some people are envious of the material items of another, others are jealous of traits someone else might poses, and then there’s people like me. People who can’t obtain the item of their desires at all. The thing I want most in this world is impossible to get, because it doesn’t exist anymore. I’m envious of my past self.

People often times refer to nostalgia as ‘a bittersweet longing for the past’, which is actually a pretty accurate description of how I feel. It also closely resembles envy in the sense that one longs for something. Nostalgia has the power to make someone feel better in the moment, but it also has the power to give someone hope for the future and what’s to come. Not me though, it has the opposite effect on me.

When I think about the past all I can do is compare it to the present. I’ll admit, not the healthiest thing, but I can’t help it. All I can see in those memories is how happy and carefree I used to be, but now I’ve got commitments and responsibilities to think about. Don’t get me wrong, I’m grateful for what I have, but I’m just so stressed that I can’t even enjoy what I’ve got, and it worries me.  I’m worried that I’ll never experience those happy, carefree emotions again.

Past me could role around in the mud with friends on a rainy day, dance around and sing along to her favorite songs from a movie when they played, and take long naps with piles of blankets and stuffed animals on her bed. She didn’t have to stay up till 2am just to finish her homework, she didn’t have to worry about people telling her that what she liked was stupid and childish, and she sure as heck didn’t have to worry about being told to suck it up because ‘it’s only going to get worse’. These things and many more are the reasons why I’m envious of her, because she could do these things without fear of being told that she was wrong.

 

There’s a song I found not to long ago that made me cry the first time I listened to it. I felt like it was not only talking about me, but to me. It expresses almost everything I feel when it comes to thinking about who I was back then compared to now. The song is called On the Borderline by Thomas Sanders. I’m not the best at communicating my feelings, I have a tendency to shut people out and burry the feelings, but music speaks to me in a way that nothing else can. Songs like Lauren Aquilina’s King and You Will Be Found from Dear Evan Hansen help me to reflect on what’s going on in my head. These songs put my feelings into words and help me to cope with my wish for the past. They can’t completely get rid of my envy towards my past self, but they help me to think about and sift through all of my thoughts and feelings.

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The big thing that I want you readers to learn from this is that it’s alright to feel envy and jealousy, but you can’t let it dictate your life. Everyone wants something, and sometimes we can have it, but that’s alright. You can’t always get what you want. It may hurt, and you might feel bad for a while, but it will get better in time.

Childlike Wonder

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What’s your favorite holiday? Is it Christmas, where you get together with the family and open presents together? Is it Halloween, where you wander the streets in costume in search of candy? What about Easter? Thanksgiving? Some other holiday? Here’s another question, why is it your favorite holiday?

People say we all grow up at some point, that we grow out of childish things like cartoons and toys. They say that we’ll realize what really matters in life and abandon these things we once loved so much, but I don’t believe this. Once you think about it, the only real difference between an adult and a child, besides the obvious physical differences, is that adults have more experience than children. They learned how to do things for themselves. They’ve learned morals and responsibility.

Growing up is just gaining experience, so no matter what we’re always growing. I still watch cartoons, go trick or treating, and sometimes, in the middle of the night, I’ll watch an old Barbie movie just because. This doesn’t mean that I haven’t grown up, it just means I continue to do the things I love. I have a job now, but I still sign up for theater every chance I get, and I still fangirl really badly when a new episode of a T.V show I watch comes out. I also shouldn’t be left alone at home because I’ll turn my shirt into a ninja mask. Growing up is an important part of life, but that doesn’t mean you can’t keep doing what you love.

There are many songs about this, but there are two that I think of when the topic of growing up comes up. Those are ‘Ain’t it Fun‘ by Paramore and ‘Here’s to Never Growing Up‘ by Avril Lavigne. I feel that these songs show different perspectives on how people grow up. Some think that as soon as you enter ‘the real world’ your childhood is over, like in Paramore’s song, but others believe that you only grow up when you stop doing the things you love, like in Avril Lavigne’s song. The truth of the matter is that our interests will change over time, and that’s okay. We’re still us, just a bit different.