Adolescent Wisdom

If a person has the good fortune to live till they are eighty years old, in their lives they would have experienced 2,522,800,000 seconds on this earth. Each moment completely unique and particular. Some happy, others sad and a great number of which are indescribable. All of them, fit together like a massive puzzle to paint a unique and unparalleled existence. With all the possible movements is it feasible to pick a favorite moment, one that encapsulates who you are and what you bring to this Earth? A difficult if not impossible task to say the least. As I set in the floor of my living room with my mother going over long forgotten memories, she selects a picture and says "ah ha! I found it". Two minutes with an old shoe box and my whole metaphor inlaid with profound musings of the expansiveness of the human existence is shot. Thanks mom it’s like the sixth sense all over again.


To save you the thirty minute sweet to the point you teeth hurt recollection from my mother I will I summarize


You are about four years old and you had decided that you were going to go through your closet. We were sitting in the family room talking about trivial things and here you come walking out three hours past your bed time. We asked you what exactly you thought you were doing, and you replied as a matter-a-factly as you could, "it is time for something new". Your dad grabbed the camera and we took this picture. I had completely forgotten about this photo fits doesn't it chul" (chul is an one of my nicknames, Rachele sounds like chul when said by an adorable two year old).

"fits doesn't it", what was she talking about? That little girl in that photograph saw an element in her life that she found boring, inadequate, and insufficient. So she changed it without a regard for practicality. She was innovative and molded the world around her as she saw best.

Now I examine my eighteen year old self. Much has changed since that photograph was taken. I no longer live in that house, I don't think I could get away with a pink Belle sweatshirt but I find myself wonder has that attitude changed?

I used to be a person who dived into what I believed in one hundred percent. If I found something that bothered me, interested me, confused me, I would become immersed until I had reached some type of solution or understanding. Over the past few years that spirit has dwindled, other matters for one reason or another have taken priority. I attribute it to the fact that in times of uncertainty (uncertain future looming, in respect to college) we have a tendency to choose complacency. At times like these I think sometimes we just need something to wake us up and remind us who were are supposed to be. This one snap shot of a little girl completely reminded me of who I hope to be and bring to this world. That fire, that passion has lied dormant for quiet sometime. I frankly for one would like to see its reappearance, like that little girl said some thirteen years ago "it is time for something new", and I couldn’t agree more.