“He said a parent word,” she told me, hands on the dollhouse set, avoiding my eyes.

“Like a bad word?” I asked.

With the tone and facial expression of utter seriousness, remembering the boy in her kindergarten class, she replied to me. “No, he said worse. He told me to shut up.”

I am speechless, trying not to laugh at the beauty of her innocence and unsure where to take what she has just told me. I love the kids at my church. She’s one of the sweetest girls; I admire her good nature and respect and kindness. I hurt for her, knowing what it feels like to be that innocent and well-behaved and sensitive at a young age. I hurt for myself, because I’m no longer in a world where “shut up” is the worst thing you can say, that it’s so bad that “only parents can say it.”

I definitely have days when I long to be a kid again. I want to be left out of difficult conversations about death and trauma. I want to do my five pages of weekly homework in five minutes. I want to not worry about astronomy labs and finding a paid summer internship and being single and how I still need to make a LinkedIn profile.

My memories float back to happier times, when I was around 4. The snowman my dad and I made that looked more like Toucan Sam from the Froot Loops box. How I would stand on his legs and pull his hair. My Barbie Jeep, my kitchen set, Chicka Chicka Boom Boom, going to grandma’s house, believing that hiccups meant you were growing...minus the fact I believed the latter until about 2 years ago... I digress. The baby doll I named after myself who looked so real that people around me gasped as they saw me carry her by one leg around the mall.

But as I sit here on the gray carpet of my dorm room, trying to not think about all the homework I still have to do, I remember the last fall retreat I went on with Wesley Campus Ministry when I experienced love, community, and Jesus like never before, and how the spring retreat is coming up in less than a month. I remember being incredibly vulnerable with people and them accepting and believing me. I remember dinners where I laughed more than I breathed. Class with a professor who watches Spongebob and made less than a 1.0 GPA his first semester. GroupMe's labeled as “Quote Walls,” set aside simply for all of the funny, random, and awkward things my friends and I say.

I think about all I’ve learned about intersectionality and feminism. What it felt like to discover my love for PR and advocacy work, to figure out what I wanted to do with my life again and again. Reading my favorite Bible verse, Romans 8:18, which says “The pain you have been feeling cannot compare to the joy that is coming,” for the first time. Having Med Deli with my entire ANTH 284 class at our professor’s house. The unity of the college struggle, whether it be ironing shirts with my straightener or going anywhere that has free food. Driving after first getting my license. Getting my Diet Cherry Lemon Sundrop before school every day senior year.

Maybe growing up isn’t the worst thing after all. Like almost everyone’s Instagram caption said on January 1st, “What a wonderful thought that some of the best days of our lives haven’t happened yet.” With this reminder, with these memories, and with this hope for the future, I dream. I have faith. I push forward. I live.