My Ten Year Old Self

Willow, age ten

Not too long ago, I read an older post by Susan, that was so touching. She suggested finding a picture of your ten year old self, framing it, and loving that little person. Travel back in time and imagination and see yourself at ten.

I remember the clean, light sky-blue walls in Miss Reddel's classroom. My best friend, Carol James, and I spent hours pulling the pills from her hand knit cardigans and saved them in giant fuzz balls in our desks. We would giggle with delight when we showed up at school wearing the same poor-boy sweater, with a blue-rose print. We were green with envy when Carol Newman wore her black pointy toe shoes without any socks. How scandalous. Peggy Guichard had the most wonderfully thick Rapunzle braids hanging long, past her waist. We took turns pulling them, like the reins of a pony.

Speaking of ponies, it was one of the most happy and carefree times of my life, frolicking around on wild colt legs. After ten, it is never quite the same. Preteen awkwardness and peer pressure anxieties set in; we are expected to grow up. I love how Billy Collins expresses his ideas on the subject.

On Turning Ten

by Billy Collins

The whole idea of it makes me feel
like I'm coming down with something,
something worse than any stomach ache
or the headaches I get from reading in bad light--
a kind of measles of the spirit,
a mumps of the psyche,
a disfiguring chicken pox of the soul.

You tell me it is too early to be looking back,
but that is because you have forgotten
the perfect simplicity of being one
and the beautiful complexity introduced by two.
But I can lie on my bed and remember every digit.
At four I was an Arabian wizard.
I could make myself invisible
by drinking a glass of milk a certain way.
At seven I was a soldier, at nine a prince.

But now I am mostly at the window
watching the late afternoon light.
Back then it never fell so solemnly
against the side of my tree house,
and my bicycle never leaned against the garage
as it does today,
all the dark blue speed drained out of it.

This is the beginning of sadness, I say to myself,
as I walk through the universe in my sneakers.
It is time to say good-bye to my imaginary friends,
time to turn the first big number.
It seems only yesterday I used to believe
there was nothing under my skin but light.
If you cut me I would shine.
But now when I fall upon the sidewalks of life,
I skin my knees, I bleed.