To our innocent youth,

As children, so young and naïve, we pondered our thoughts of what the future might hold for us. Some of us envisioned lab coats and stethoscopes, tiaras and gowns or astronaut helmets and rockets. But among these fantasies that will most likely never turn into reality, we never thought about the time that lay between playing in the rain and the responsibilities of adulthood. What the storybooks never told us was that this expanse of time, between our innocent youth and corrupt maturity, would seem like a never-ending cycle.

If our ignorant minds would have contemplated the years in this stretch of time, we would have never envisioned ourselves as person we are now. Rather, we would have seen ourselves as the star athlete, the gorgeous genius or the popular kid, regardless of that fact that he or she couldn’t tell their math notes from their English papers. Not only stereotyping every individual into a category, but mentally hoisting ourselves to the very top of the social stardom.

But as our innocence continued to be robbed from our souls by the bitter reality of society, we realize that this undiscovered time is now upon us, and none of our childhood ambitions are in sight. We aren’t a sports star, the glasses in front of our eyes and the bun on top of our heads prevent us from thinking we’re anywhere near the desirable genius and popularity escapes the room when we walk in. We ask ourselves what separates us from them, but we quickly switch our pondering thoughts to the fact that we don’t care. We wouldn’t want to be any of these people even if the opportunity slapped us in our acne-shielded faces.

We don’t mind going along in life unaccompanied by the people who appear to have it all. We have just enough, and that’s all we need. We have our very best friends that we choose to surround ourselves with, and we can’t ask for much more. Maybe we don’t have the best lives, and some days, we would give anything to have just one guy look at us as if we belonged in the same species as the popular girls, but we brush those thoughts away as we study for our next exam. We laugh at our invisibility and are utterly grateful that we aren’t expected to wear pink outfits and accompanying Ugg boots. And although we tell ourselves we are exactly where we want to be in life, we desire to be youthful and innocent again.

So here’s to our youth. To the nights spent at gymnastics with our childhood best friend. To the days off of school we spent sled riding down the hills of our neighborhood with our siblings. To the weekends we danced in the rain, enjoying every drop of rain that ran down our faces. To the moments when we cried to our parents and expected everything problematic in our lives to work itself out. To the few wallflowers we met along the way. And finally, here’s to the innocence of our youth. You will be missed, but we will never forget the memories you gave us.

Sincerely,

The Wallflowers