Take Me Back.

I don’t have many memories from when I was a child. I held myself to the same standards to which I would hold an adult, so I subconsciously view my former self as an inferior version of myself.

One of the few feelings that vividly stuck with me was a day at summer camp. We were all playing on the playground at a park in my hometown that I was unfamiliar with, and I made a new friend. We were playing on a climbing dome, deep in conversation. When we looked up and around us, everyone was gone. We were in the middle of a flat, barren park with no trees nearby to obscure anything around us—and yet, there was no adult within seeing distance. We looked around and at each other.

“We should probably catch up with them” he said.

“Do you think they’ll come for us?” I said.

We didn’t say much. We just shrugged it off and kept playing.

A mom ran up to us, hand to her mouth, asking if we were okay. She asked us where everyone went, and we said we had no idea. She grabbed us by the arms and walked us past baseball diamonds and racquetball courts. I wasn’t scared before that moment—but I was then. We were grateful someone cared for us and gave us comfort, but we realized how much danger we were really in.

I think about that day more now. How we waited instead of chasing others. Maybe it’s where I learned to wait for those who walk away—holding out hope they’ll come back. There’s a strange peace in not knowing, in sitting in the silence. But once you’re found and ushered along, desperately trying to catch up, you can’t help but wonder what everyone who left you behind is up to without you. You become terrified, or at least overwhelmed, at the thought of getting caught up in something else—distracting yourself from where you’re supposed to be for so long that you slowly forget about it until one day everything is different. Your heart starts to race. You feel alone in crowded places—like a cutout of a person from a magazine placed in a collage. Looking around, over your shoulder, wondering who can tell you’re in the wrong place. Then you wonder why none of them are coming to tell you it’s okay and help you find your way back.

But you can’t say anything. Because you’re supposed to think it’s the right place. And surely it is—someone is looking out for you. You’re being taken care of now.

But now I’m the adult. I get to set the standards. And I say this wasn’t where I was before.

So take me back.