I Miss the Version of Us That Existed Before We All Grew Up

When I was eight, I couldn’t wait to grow up. I dreamed of independence, a place of my own, the freedom to come and go as I pleased, no one asking where I was or when I’d be back. I wanted a life that was fully mine.

But what no one tells you about growing up is that sometimes the people you love don’t leave all at once, they just quietly drift to the edges of your life. Not with a bang, but with a soft fade.

A couple of weeks ago, I was sitting with a friend and had the idea to pull up my childhood home on Google Maps. I lived there for nine years, and some of my earliest memories were born inside that small house in a quiet neighbourhood. At some point, that neighborhood is all I know existed, I wasn’t aware of a world beyond that neighborhood. Through the screen, I spotted the mailbox my mom would send me to every week, the backyard garage where my brother and I stood freezing in the winter when we forgot our keys and no one was home. The big tree in the front yard, the one that starred in countless photos.

Maybe it’s because I’ve moved so much since then, but the house looked smaller than I remembered. As a kid, the world felt so large, so infinite. I spotted toys and bikes scattered across the lawn, maybe left by the kids who now live there with their own parents.

I thought about the times I waited outside the door for my afternoon Kindergarten class. The rocky path on the side of the house to the garage where I fell down a million times. The front yard where we played and built forts in the snow. The big glass window I loved to watch the world through from the inside. That house held some of my happiest memories, and maybe some of the early sad ones too.

No one tells you that families fade slowly, not with a fight but with a group chat and a calendar no one can sync.

There was always noise back then: my mom yelling for us to hurry or we’d miss the bus, me trying to fake sleep to skip school, family visiting over the holidays, laughter echoing through the walls. Even the quiet had warmth, the clinking of dishes, the buzz of an old big TV, that I’m sure no longer exists today playing in the background.

I think about the version of us that existed back then, in the small, ordinary moments. Sitting too close on the couch. Sharing a bedroom with my brother. Arguing over dinner. My dad’s news channel humming in the background. Lingering over empty plates, because no one wanted to leave the table just yet.

Back when showing up wasn’t scheduled. Back when we didn’t need a reason to be together.

Growing up teaches you how to be alone and how to be good at it. You learn how to hold yourself together on bad days, how to carry grocery bags without help, how to keep your own fridge full, or sometimes remain empty. I think about my parents, not just as parents but as people. People who were once my age, trying to figure out their lives while raising us pretending to have all the answers while showing up everyday even when they were probably exhausted.

I think there is greater pain in understanding them now. I understand the sighs after work, the way they used to eat dinner, the long silences in the car. I understand they that weren’t keeping things from us but they were just carrying things for us. And I think that maybe, that’s the part of what makes growing up so heavy. You start to see your childhood from the outside. You realize how much love was folded in the ordinary. Into packed lunches, early morning calls, lights left on in case I got scared at night. The things I once took for granted now feel like love letters I didn’t know how to read until now.

No one tells you to pay attention to the ordinary. No one tells you that these simple, loud chaotic days are the ones you’ll ache for the most. You spend so much time wanting to grow up, to be independent, to go and then one day you do. You go. You grow. You build a life that’s yours.

But sometimes, late at night, you’ll want to go back. Just for a little while. Just to sit in that table again. To hear everyone’s voice in the same room and when there was so much joy in that. Just to feel like nothing important had been lost yet.

If you’re still there, still in the midst of it all, still surrounded by the people who feel like home, still coming back to a place where someone leaves the light on for you, don’t rush past it.

Sit with them a little longer. Watch their faces when they laugh. Listen, even if you’ve heard the story a hundred times, because one day you’ll miss the sound of their voice more than the story itself. These are the ordinary moments that will echo long after they’re gone. I wish someone had told me to live my childhood like a child, not like a brand, not like someone already trying to prove her worth to the world.

But everything now, social media, school, the pressure to grow up fast, it makes it so easy to forget that we were meant to just be: freely, simply, joyfully. I look at kids today and sometimes it’s so sad how fast they’re asked to grow. You’ll realize one day that, childhood was never about becoming someone. It was about being someone: loved, messy, loud, curious, enough.

So if you still have that chance, take it. Ask your grandparents the questions while you still can. Sit on the floor with your sibling and laugh over something dumb. Watch the sunset without recording it. Ride your bike just to feel the wind in your hair. Hug your best friend and mean it.

These small things, they are the big things. One day, they’ll be what you come back to, when everything else grows quiet.