I do not remember much of my childhood. I think of it in slices: a piece here, a chunk of it there, a repressed memory popping out of nowhere. We as human beings are not supposed to recall much from our childhoods regardless, but for me, it is almost as if I never existed until I turned twelve.

My old therapist used to say that was not normal. It had something to do with trauma, something about the brain shutting itself down because it physically could not handle whatever events transpired. I remember sitting there in that room wanting to rip out my synapses and prod them until they zapped to life again. (That isn't how it works either, but that is how I thought I could fix it.)

The snippets I recall from being a child are cloaked in fantasy. My childhood best friends - only friends, for that matter - were less tangible and real to me than the imaginary characters I read about in story books.

I remember drawing half-colored photos for teachers during recess and relishing in their grins as they hung up the artwork on the back wall.

I remember the pink chalk that stained my hands when I tried to get friends by writing down, "Who wants to play with me?" on the blacktop on a sticky May afternoon. I remember the tears stinging my eyes when I saw someone else had scribbled all the way over it.

I remember going to a cheerleading party and sitting with the adults upstairs, chatting like a mother instead of the ten year old I should have been. When they asked me why I was not hanging around the other kids, I said I liked the grown ups better. Somehow, I fit in there.

I remember wandering through Michigan's would-be forests and thinking to myself that I wish I had magic so I could light up the sky.

I remember sitting in the corner of a playground with a book in my hands, devouring words whole like I could spit them back out and breathe life into them. To this day, I still reread "Harry Potter" whenever I get lonely.

I am twenty years old now, and growing old terrifies me. Maybe it has to do with the horrifying ordeal of filing tax forms. Maybe it has to do with knowing that humans are not meant to spend their final years alone. Maybe it has to do with understanding that dreams die and so does everyone you love.

Maybe it is all of that, but I don't believe it is the entire picture.

I have spoken to a lot of people with similar stories of a childhood spent in isolation, leading to introversion and fear of abandonment. These people are old souls.

They are the ones who are told, "Hey, you're so mature for your age!" as though it is a compliment rather than a testimony to some childhood lost. They yearn for the ability to see life through the eyes of someone more carefree and able to simply let go. They think too much about everyone else and not enough about themselves.

We are afraid to grow up because we do not know what it means.

When childhood was not what it was meant to be, adulthood becomes a supernova exploding with anxious thoughts. We are terrified of never getting better at existing than we were as children. Some of us never planned on getting this far.

It hurts a lot more now than it did then. I have a found family in a group of friends; I am closer to my biological family than I ever was previously. Yet there is this hollow ache in the middle of my chest that something will never be quite right when my mind inevitably flutters back to those black holes of should have beens.

I plan to live my life the way I should have treated as a child by my peers: with kindness, love, and understanding. We all deserve a home. We all deserve to feel purposeful and as though we are meant to be here. We all deserve happiness and this universe's most beautiful moments.

We deserve the lives our childhood selves would have wanted.

To you, dear reader: I sincerely hope you strive for that too.