Phosphorescence

Technology is taking over my life.  Every second I'm not on my phone, i want to be.  When i get up in the morning, i do my rounds.  Instagram, then twitter, then facebook, then wanelo.  When I'm not on any of these, i'm on Netflix, or Hulu, or I'm checking my email.  My life consists of endless technology, and at least five hours a day on the computer.  It's highly addictive.  When I was a kid, there was no such thing as a computer, there was only mystery.  The world was an endless ball of light, and everything was there only to delight my every whim.  And then I grew up.  School hit me head on, tests, papers, quizzes all at the same  time.  Then there was money, wars, the economy, technology, and college.  Somewhere in there, I lost sight of the world that had once delighted me.  Instead I found gray, where I had once found bright colors.

There was one day this summer when I felt like a child again.  I went hiking up Burnt Rock with some of my best friends, and the world seemed infinite and the possibilities endless.  Then we went back to my friends house and layed in the grass and swam in the river and I felt alive again.  I caught a glimpse of the child I had once been, the child I will never be again.

As much as I would like, I will never see the world that way again.  I might catch glimpses of the wonder at times, but the world will never be that simple again.  I'm becoming a person, a grown up, and as much as that scares me, every day it approaches me, I feel more ready, more excited to push off and jump straight in.

But for those times when the world just won't top being gray, I can go back to that child place in my mind, the place where I wound through the old greenhouse with Kai, where i rolled across the rolling hill.  The place where I swam in the brooks, where I climbed the mountains.  The place where I skipped rocks and where I learned to rip stick.  The place where I played hopscotch, hide and seek, and took baths with Emma.  The place where I learned how to love with Kai and Jon Luc and Charlie.  The place I learned how to be a best friend with Meredith.  The place I learned how to cartwheel, the place I learned how to play poker, and badminton.  The place I learned how to tube and waterski with Katie and Charlotte and Jack and TK.  the place I learned how to do my makeup and how to make peanut butter oreo sandwiches.

This is the place that I want to forever be a part of me, no matter how old I get. I'm excited for what life will bring, and i'll always hold onto the memories, people and lessons life has given me.

"I am a full grown man, but I will lay in the grass, in the grass."

"Someday you will be old enough to start reading fairy tales again"