When I was about seven years old, I would look at 11-year-olds and wish I was them. When I was eleven years old, I would look at 15-year-olds and wish I was them. When I was 15 years old, I would look at 18-year-olds and wish I was them.

Throughout my childhood, I wished my childhood away. I couldn’t wait to be able to sit in the passenger’s seat. I couldn’t wait to go to the mall by myself. I couldn’t wait to hang out with my friends every weekend.

I couldn’t wait to grow up.

There are only a certain number of monumental milestones in my life like getting my license, getting my first job, getting married, having kids, and retirement. Although every time I reach a milestone, I greatly anticipate the next, forgetting that eventually there won’t be any left. The big milestones overpower the small, making me ungrateful.

As a child, the world was filled with unusual, unique undiscovered thing. Like the ending of a book, the world was unknown to me. My future could be anything I could fathom, and the best part was that it was constantly changing with each passing day.

Although now I have reached the age when I want to go back into my childhood years. I want to backtrack, but I’m not able to. I now look at seven and eleven-year-olds, and I want to be them.

I crave the carefree life– the homework-free life that I took advantage of when I was young and the world that seemed undeniably magical was not what I hoped. As I grow up, I realize the situations I had made up in my head and hoped for were nothing but a fantasy. There’s no time to hang out with friends due to copious responsibilities, and I rarely make time to stop by the mall.

I had watched the world through wide, exploring eyes, always looking into the future. Now, I look into the past with saddened eyes. As much as I wish to go back in time and tell myself to take a breath and appreciate the world I was living in, I cannot. Life continues to move on even if I wish it wouldn’t. I can only tell myself that same thing now and realize I will never be this young again. All I have is “the now,” and I need to stop living in the past.