Well, I'm still up (obviously, eh?) and still not done with math. I'm eating chip and mint ice cream and trying to ignore the surging pain in my left big toe. Okay, since people I know are undoubtedly reading this, I won't get gory, but basically I have an ingrown toenail apparently, and it is quite red and swollen and generally just uncomfortable. Enough said.
So I have a 'profound' statement here, that I was stewing on as I stared blankly at my derivation worksheet: I am not a child any longer. I know what you’re most likely thinking right now (‘wow, she’s kind of slow..’) but I mean, really. I mean, yes, I’ve known for quite some time (many, many years) that I was transitioning from childhood into adulthood, but it rather dawned on me as I was lying on my bed doing precal that I was completely out of childhood and there was no going back. Never.
Okay, here’s the run-down of things. I was lying on my bed, barefoot and hair messed up, tapping my pencil distractedly as I stared at the complete gibberish of math symbols on the paper. I heard the hum of the dishwasher, the typing of a keyboard, the droan of the TV in the background. But then my ears perked up and I heard something else: my mother’s voice. It was calm, mellow, rhythmic, for once, and I realized that I had not heard that voice in this manner for quite some time now; she was reading to my brother. I listened for a bit, then I realized what she was reading: one of my favorite books from when I was my brother’s age, Corduroy. I listened in, shutting out the other noises, and shutting out my homework for the time being. I even shut my eyes. When it was finished, I suddenly grew revolted, almost. Here I was, 17, listening to a toddler’s bedtime story. But, in those few, peaceful, time-stopping moments, I was more than nostalgic; I was 3 again. I hadn’t heard my mother like that for such a long time. See, I’m usually the one that reads him a bedtime, story. Rarely my sister or dad. Anyway, I was, for a brief period, brought back to how it once was. A time when there really were no worries, or the biggest worry in my life was being able to write my b’s the right way in preschool or something ridiculous. There were no qualms of having to stay up to ungodly hours to finish pointless calculus derivations or statistics t critical nonsense. Not to mention scholarships, AP exams, and college. Back when life was simple and evil simply did not exist. I knew only the soft, ragged feel of my pink and blue blanket, knew only the soft voice of my effervescent young mother, knew only the taste of pancakes and noodles and mashed potatoes and cakes made with loving hands just for me. I didn’t know what life was like.
My point of all this is that I, for just a very brief speck of time, was tinged with envy. Yes, envy. Of my brother. Wait, no. For (oh, dear Lord, I sound like Dorian Gray) youth. Well, he’s right, you know. It’s the one thing that one can never get back. With time comes experience, knowledge. What is better, being young, nieve, and blissfully happy? Or being ‘un-blind-folded” and possessing knowledge of how the world really is? Which is better, happiness, or knowledge? Can one have both?
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