Some things in life never change.
Fortunately, I did.
As a child I was as carefree as a leaf drifting on a warm Autumn breeze. I was wild like vines left in an untended pumpkin patch, impossible to suppress. My days were filled with running, jumping, and climbing trees, smiling or moving in every picture. It's quite obvious I had to be coaxed and chided into standing still and posing for a photograph. For every textbook picture, there's another behind it, discarded for my funny faces, or moving out of the frame as a blur. I was vivacious and animated. I sparkled.
Years of education did not muzzle my exuberance. I gleefully took on the public school system by storm, and if it were a battle, I believe I would have won in those first few years. I fairly flew through Girl Scouts, dance recitals, Science Olympiad competitions, and summer camps. I thrived on simply creating a splendid chaos at every opportunity. My hair was long and tangled, teeth knocked out prematurely by a rouge softball.
As I matured, or at least as I grew, my soul still clung to those particles of excitement. The world was still an open book to me, and I was devouring the pages. While other students my age were settling down to finally tune and focus on the finer points of geography and history, mastering the fine skill of typing properly on a keyboard or sharpening their drafting pencils, heads bent solemnly over their books, I did not give in. I sang songs from the radio in study hall, and my book bag was as full of candy as it was with books and pencils. While I dutifully eschewed my assignments, took tests, and discovered the opposite sex, I still found myself jumping fences and playing in the dirt.
Somewhere down the line, pinpointed roughly at the transition from child to adolescent, junior high to high school, the burning brilliance that I radiated was dulled. There's no one event or moment to blame. As J.M. Barrie reminds us, all children grow up. I studied, focused hard on music and mastering the skills coerced upon me. I became fluent in the languages of algebra and chemistry, and I undertook the task of unraveling the works of Poe, Shakespeare, and Dostoevsky. Somewhere in this time period I started caring what others thought of me. I wore makeup to hide my flaws instead of for the fun of colors. My jeans boasted flared bottoms and embroidery at the pocket instead of patches dyed by dirt and sun, and frayed hems torn and shedding thread in a froth at my feet. The soles of my shoes no longer felt the rough kiss of a sturdy branch. I posed jauntily for pictures with friends, the exact same expression on my face in every single shot. I wasn't brilliant, and I wasn't moving. I had calmed my body to fit the mold of an adult-to-be. That was the biggest mistake of my life.
College is a land of opportunity. You can fix the mistakes you made to yourself in the past, re-invent yourself, be reborn as somebody you always wondered about. Most college campuses boast thousands of students, most of which you don't know, and about the same number who don't care about getting to know you. You can buckle down and engulf all the knowledge of the world, or you can wake up on a different stranger's couch every weekend, head throbbing, eyes bleary, and covered in permanent marker. I found a comfortable balance at college. I was a good student, above average on attendance and test scores, yet I remember the days I'd look out the window to see pools of rainwater threatening to flood the walkways once more, and I'd decide to stay in for the day watching cartoons in my pajamas. "It's raining," became synonymous with "I'm not going to class today. Wake me up at noon and we'll order Chinese food." Some college-goers find a freedom in alcohol, and the mass consumption of it. I took no large delight in this. I went out, I had fun. I woke up on unfamiliar couches and floors of rooms I don't remember entering, but it wasn't a way of life for me. College was more the freedom to go backward. I didn't re-invent myself; I wasn't the "new me." More than that, college, and the new people I befriended, if only for a short while, allowed me to go back and reclaim a little glow, a little glitter from the sparkle from "the old me." I walked railroad tracks for miles, just to see where they turned. I convinced friends played in rivers with me, even when there were shards and clumps of ice beneath the swift-moving surface. I trespassed on farmland and forest, once again climbing a tree, the dirt-scented air filling my lungs once more. I started cartwheel competitions on the lawn in front of the student center. I met the most amazing strangers. Pictures of me started showing signs of actual emotions instead of the same affixed smile. The contours of my body blurred behind the camera lens. I was moving.
There's a quote I used to have on a post-it note hung on my bedroom wall that read, "Go into the world and do well, but more importantly, go into the world and do good." I have no idea who said that, but I owe them some thanks. In following that advice, I did good to the world, and the world responded by returning some life into my subdued self. I started volunteering at the local animal shelter, I helped organize can drives, and I learned cooking skills volunteering at a soup kitchen. I helped build houses with Habitat for Humanity. Now I not only own power tools, I know their proper names and how to use them effectively.
As I continued through college, I found myself being taken along with friends on various errands and weekends. Random road trips to nowhere at 2AM, celebrating birthdays of my room mate's-cousin's-friend's-dog Freckles, raking leaves and digging septic tanks at a Boy Scout camp. That camp became a home I have treasured far more than any other gift that life has bestowed upon me. Offered a summer position, I began my summer by learning to pretend to like anything slimy, scaly, hairy, or winged. Within weeks I didn't have to pretend anymore. I was in love. It was as if life ran in a circle, and I had caught up with my childhood once more. I got to fuse my adult-like knowledge and skills with my youthful loves. I identified trees, climbed them, cut them down, and burned them at roaring bonfires. I went fishing and caught a turtle. I got too close, and a turtle caught me. I partied at night and played capture the flag during the day. I got teased and chased in endless games, and I rode shotgun in a truck with a cab meant for 3 but piled with 8. Looking at these photographs, my pants are torn, dirt smears tattoo my arms and face, and my hair flies wildly out of my trademark ponytail. My body language and facial expressions are animated and alive. Sparks nearly jump to my hands, and I have to smile.
Sadly, nothing gold can stay. The theme of a Robert Frost poem, found in countless books and resources, one of them being here. Like any relationship, both Life and the Earth take as well as give. They gave me myself back, then they took the places and people that nurtured that self away from me, or rather, took me away from them. Due to circumstances beyond my control (and my liking) I moved home, college unfinished, prospects for another summer away dimmed to a mere flame in a cavern. I find myself stuck working a job I hate, not making enough money to pay the bills, and missing my friends and former life so much I find tears soaking my pillow in the morning. This is where the choice comes in. Life has presented me with a gift, and it's up to me to decide how to use it. I can let this challenge defeat me, curl in bed, only escaping the dark confines of my shaded room to shower, go to work, grab dinner, and return, or I can attempt to tackle this the way I would have as a child- I can create a delightful chaos, move, jump, play, and create. I can labor in the dull lethargy of my own self-pity, or I can try to make myself sparkle.
I think I've been forgetting my lessons. Not math and geography, but tree-climbing and seeing fun instead of fear. Some things in life, like some people, do not change. I've seen the changes in myself through pictures and artifacts. Notebooks filled with doodles and messages to friends, then filled with pages of careful notes and figures, back to doodles and tic-tac-toe boards slid across college lecture halls. The leaf collections and friendship bracelets from elementary school, the make-up collection in it's disheveled box from junior high, back to bracelets and leaves collected into collages for me at camp last summer. I can see the choices before me, and while I cannot even begin to guess how Life will manipulate my choices, the consequences and unforeseen difficulties that are sure to result from any action I take, the fact that I'm going to take action is a good sign. I want my pictures blurred, my expression different in every snapshot of my life.
