Dear Childhood Me,

Greetings from the future. It’s big and scary here. Everything’s changed but everything is the same.

How was school? How are your grades? Did you pass that test? Any new Disney Channel Original Movies come out? I know you love shows like ‘That’s So Raven’, ‘Lizzie McGuire,’ ‘The Proud Family,’ and ‘Kim Possible.’ Trust me when I say those shows will be all you and your friends have.

I can’t tell you everything about the future. What I can tell you keep dreaming and keep imagining things. Your imagination will bring so much joy to your life. Don’t believe anyone when they tell you not to dream because someday you will prove them wrong.

You will stand tall on your dreams.

Sincerely yours,

‘Your Future Self.'

I had this thought one day coming home from work of what I would tell my childhood self. I decided to write my childhood self a letter telling him to keep dreaming and always believe in himself. In the process I think about the years and associate memories that accompanied.

I felt a somewhat loss.

As adults, we often forget we were children. We spend so much time trying to fit into some idea that everything has to be serious, all about money, and responsibility. What about when we were children and we laughed as loud as we could, or when we danced to the new artist at the time, or when we dreamed about who and what we wanted to be?

When I think about my childhood, there were very interesting and trying times that came up. Growing up in a broken home, being picked on every day at school, discovering my love for writing and imagination, watching Disney Channel and Nickelodeon, spending days and nights thinking about anything and everything.

The list could go on.

One thing I do remember being a child was dreaming of what I would be when I grew up. I wish I would have wrote a list of all I wanted to accomplish when I was younger, put it away, and then open it when I became an adult. Would everything match up?

Somedays I feel reconnected to my childhood self. I remember old friends, old shows, old films, and many things that made my childhood colorful. It seems that writing has become my only connection between adulthood and childhood.

There’s probably some psychological disorder I have called ‘Peter Pan syndrome’ or I probably had what Michael Jackson had. Regardless, I’d be lying if I said every now and then I don’t miss my childhood. Maybe not the time but the spirit I had. I had this fearlessness and drive to imagine and create. Sometimes I think that fearlessness got lost along my journey to adulthood.

As I dive deeper and deeper into my twenties, I made a promise to myself that I would live a fulfilling life. A life I dreamed about as a child. I couldn’t predict how I would have ended up as an adult. There’s no way I could have predicted battling depression, working two jobs to pay for school, losing family members and friends, and still thinking “what do I want to be?”

I’m sure I’m not the only adult who thinks this way. I’m sure I’m not the only adult who is writing about this. But this is a thought I have every day that holds me accountable to live a genuine life.

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