Our life in passing

When we were little, we dreamt of being like those people we saw in movies or in beauty magazines. We wanted to be princesses and superheroes and maybe, fairies and other mythical creatures too. We played castle with our friends, combed each other's hair and sometimes poured imaginary tea on the cups of our imaginary friends. Carton boxes were more than just empty boxes, they were spaceships and race cars and caves and houses. Such imagination we had back then.

On good days, when it wasn't raining too hard or if the heat wasn't scorching, we'd play outside, if not in our own backyards, at the pavements of the nearest side streets. We'd draw all sorts of things on the ground after realizing that stones etch white markings if you use them as writing materials against the pavements. We'd enjoy ourselves a little too much and would dread the time when we'd hear our mothers calling us in for either, an afternoon nap, shower or supper.

And then we grew up a little. We started having crushes and boyfriends and our barbies were left in the cabinets. Suddenly, we were always so conscious of how we looked or if our clothes matched or if it was a good hair day. We always wanted to be with our friends and our parents were the greatest antagonists in our stories. On desperate days, we crept out of the house to attend this party all the cool kids were going to. After all that trouble trying to keep the gate as silent a possible while you closed it or that old screen door from banging.. After all the nervousness when you walked or rode a cab to your friend's house, you realize that the party wasn't as rad as you thought it would be and only the in people seem to be having a good time. You try to small talk some people but it just isn't working out. The morning after, you're having a bad headache from an equally bad hangover from last night!s party because you had to drown yourself in alcohol just to fool yourself that you were having fun. You go to school and fall asleep in class only to wake up and realize that you forgot you had a quiz in geometry that day. You fail and that was the beginning of your failing streak. This wasn't you.

You enter college and you promise to redeem yourself. It was all you ever dreamt of, going to college in that big ol university. And then you realize, college isn't as fun as you thought it would be. It wasn't as liberating as those movies promised. Parties were fun, people were crazy, your friends are the best, but it still wasn't what you thought it would be like.. And feel like.. College straightened you out because with all that independence you had on your hands, you suddenly felt the burden for your own life. Who you'll become in the future, how much success you would achieve or the lack thereof would now be the outcome of your decisions. So you had to finally face reality, that things aren't as simple as they used to be.. And carton boxes are now just empty boxes waiting to be filled with things you either had to throw away or keep in storage..

And then you sit down in front of your computer screen while you scrolled through your social networking site. You look at your friends list and ask yourself how many of these friends are even really your friends. You look through old pictures and realize that your life had already passed you by. You sit there and realize that you aren't happy. That there's definitely something missing. That you yearned for something more than this but never really know what happened.

How have we become these people we don't even know? The kind of people that we promised not to be?

Ky

Disclaimer: these are fictitious situations. General experiences put together. Not pertaining to anyone or any life in particular. If anything, it would have been just a great coincidence.