The Price of Growing Up: Breaking the Cycle of Pain

The Transformation

How does it happen? I keep asking myself this question. How does a sweet, loving, caring, extra affectionate, supporting, calming young boy grow up to be such a vicious, heartless, nonchalant, unloving, seemingly demon-possessed bastard?

And the girls – God, the girls. How does a sweet, gullible, caring, loving, slightly possessive, funny, playful, and energetic young girl transform into such a mean, bitter, sneaky ass bitch? I've watched it happen. Like watching a beautiful flower slowly wilt and rot, but in reverse – because at least a rotting flower returns to the earth. This transformation? It spreads like a virus.

The Clarity of Age

When I was younger, I used to wonder what mysterious force turned happy children into sour adults. Now that I'm older, I see it clearly – too clearly. It's like gaining vision only to wish you could return to blindness.

I genuinely despise this everlasting cycle: the good meeting the not-so-good, or plainly evil, and then becoming tainted. It's like watching a sour patch kid that never returns to sweetness, stuck in its sour state forever.

The Loss of Innocence

I hate how life ruins innocence. But no – that's not quite right. It's not life itself I should blame. It's the compilation of many things, many people, many moments that chip away at our original selves until we barely recognize who we've become.

We're all thrown our different spheres and levels of challenges. Some of these challenges can damn near break most, if not all, of us humans. I get that. I understand it deep in my bones.

A Fool's Hope

But maybe I'm a fool for hoping we could turn back the hands of time. Not literally, but by simply stopping the passing of sourness through each generation, each person, each moment of choice.

Here's my radical thought:

• If you've been heartbroken, try not to pass that along

• If you've been betrayed, don't become the betrayer

• If you've been hurt, don't make hurting others your revenge

This idea that misery needs company? That's bullshit. Pure, simple bullshit. Misery doesn't need company, and even if misery was a real living organism, it doesn't need you or me. Neither of us are actually misery – we're just its temporary hosts, if we allow ourselves to be.

The Acknowledgment

Listen, I understand. More than that – I feel it. Life has been unfair to you, and it's not alright. It's not fair. It pains and hurts so deep, so fast, so much, so strongly that your heart wants to explode.

But even in the midst of that pain, that stabbing sensation that seems to find the same open wound over and over again, we can't afford to keep losing our grip. We can't justify inflicting similar if not the same pain and heartbreak on others, especially those who are clearly undeserving of it.

The Choice

Every day, we make a choice:

• To break the cycle or perpetuate it

• To heal or to hurt

• To remain sweet or become sour

• To protect innocence or destroy it

Maybe the true mark of growing up isn't becoming hardened by life's challenges, but remaining soft despite them. Not naive softness, but the intentional kind – the type that says, "I know how much this hurts, and that's exactly why I won't pass it on."

The Challenge

So here's my challenge to you – to us all: Remember who you were before the world told you who to be. Remember the sweetness before the sour. Remember the love before the hate. And most importantly, remember that you have a choice in who you become.

Because maybe, just maybe, the key to healing isn't in spreading our pain, but in being the person we needed when we were younger.

The End

Note to self: Perhaps the greatest act of rebellion against a harsh world isn't becoming harsh ourselves, but maintaining our capacity for kindness despite it all.