Innocence

Innocence. One word. Bliss. There are times when you just wish fervently that you could go back. Go back to the times when innocence was something taken for granted. When you could look at the skies and wish upon stars, really believing that your wishes could really come through. Times when the only ghosts that exists are those in your closet, not those in your mind. The shattering of innocence, the surfacing of reality.

Time transcends all things. That swing in the park that used to make you think you could reach up and touch the sky evolves into a plank of wood held up by chains. Grown-ups don’t seem so gargantuan anymore. Pain is promoted to an emotional level. Your mind begins to point out things that your eyes refuse to acknowledge. A seed of doubt blossoms into a tree that takes root deep down in your heart. And then you start wishing. Wishing that you could turn back time. Wishing that you could limit your thoughts to nothing beyond ice-cream and cakes. Wishing that sometimes, fairy-tales were more than fiction. Wishing that happy endings do exist. Wishing that time doesn't change things.

But in it all, you shake at the thought of mortality. You wish you could outrun time, but ever persistent, it catches up with you, in the form of Age. Ask someone, what would you like to do before you die? Answers would probably range from watching the sun rise in the smile of a loved one, climb Mount Everest, go sky-diving, meet up with long lost friends, walk my little girl down the aisle, knowing she’ll be cared for. Different people, caught in different phases in life.