Fourteen (a childhood reflection)

I remember being fourteen and fifteen. I don't remember being ecstatically happy, but I remember being peaceful and okay. I was okay with who I was and where I was. I'd realized, as much as a fourteen-year-old can, who I was and what I was meant to be. I remember things like walking home from school in a light rain, wearing the simple clothes I loved and listening to Pete Yorn. I felt an accord with myself, with nature, with God. Although I wasn't putting anything like an identity on God, not even the name "God". It was just a quiet knowledge and embracing of a force much bigger than me, yet so in tune with who I was I could not ignore it. It understood me and calmed my heart.

I knew I was put on this earth for stories, for pictures, for music. In essence, to create worlds that better illuminated our own, like looking outside from a church's stained glass window, one pane at a time. Of course, I didn't pick the arts as my education and career path; I picked science. I don't regret my decision. It's just that my spiritual awareness grew from that quiet walk in the rain into a fabricated battle for my life. While I hesitate to say that my conversion to hard core Christianity encouraged this, I can say for certain that my Christian peers did.

It wasn't until I was nineteen years that I realized what I mess I was in. I was growing into an adult and the pressures of the world coupled with the pressures of the supposed spiritual were too much. I longed again for the quiet evenings spent readings stories in my room and the quiet, rainy walks home from school. I could sense God then. Now, all the propaganda in His name has barred my way to Him. My friends were leading me into endless tunnels that should have been stories but (I was told) were real. And I was growing up. The world wouldn't let me be a little girl anymore, as much as I want to.

I began to realize then that I wanted to throw off this cape of fairy tales and get in touch with the real world around me. I found the world to be frightening…and beautiful. I realized the story I'd missed all along. And I realized my responsibility as an adult to be a part of that world (for the most part, anyway). So I dumped my boyfriend, I got new friends and I grew up. I chose to go into science because in it I saw the fairy tale beauty that was an actual part of the world I was living in. Besides, hardly anyone makes a living as an artist of any kind.

Looking back, being fourteen and fifteen were some of the most important years of my life. They remind me of who I am, who I should be. Years sixteen through twenty have been hell, but they are also very important. I'm serious about my career and being a responsible adult, but on the side there's till fourteen with the fairy tales, pictures, music and dancing. Who knew fourteen would be my saving grace?