When I attend a family reunion, my favorite activity is to look at my younger relatives and imagine what they’re thinking about.

Despite being 11 just four years ago, I feel as though the way I think and perceive the world around me has changed so drastically that trying to see the world through a younger version of my eyes is like squinting at a blurry picture. Being a kid is one of the best things about being alive. The world is a saturated playground of colors and shapes. Tragedy has no meaning to children, and the idea of misery is a foreign concept they have not learned yet. I don’t think anyone is ready to grow up. I believe that no matter where you are in life, there will always be a longing to be young again.

My meltdown came to a head on a regular Sunday. Rain washed over my house. It looked like a permanent state of evening just outside my window. Even the slightest glance into my backyard sent a cold shiver through my body as I imagined standing out there in the wind and rain. What better way to deal with boredom than to clean out your closet? The task was simple enough. I knew how to go about it, and it would be a relief from the constant reminders I received from my dad’s girlfriend and my grandma. Dragging the containers downstairs to be organized made me feel like a macho muscle man in a circus, with protruding muscles the size of watermelons.

I didn’t think about the act of cleaning much. I used my closet for storage and to put my clothes in. There wasn’t anything special or sacred about the space itself. At the end of the day, it was simply a beige 5’ x 4’ area with shelves and a place to put hangers. I guess what started to get to me was how untouched it had been. All of the items left on the floor or on top of the shelf hadn’t been moved since eighth grade, and the more I cleaned, the younger and younger I got. When I picked up dolls, or art supplies, or old journals and baby clothes, there was a sadness that was tugging at my heart I could not yet identify.

It was a repetitive process, and when you are faced with that, you often just tune out the world around you for a few hours until you’re done. Maybe that’s why it didn’t really matter to me until the end, where finally I saw the blank walls of my closet and I was able to see the carpeted floor. Then, it dawned on me: I wasn’t a kid anymore.

At dinner, I was mentally drained and empty inside. I felt no emotions and I voiced none of my thoughts. I cope with difficult things by putting up a mental block between the emotion and the rest of my body, and I use that until I’m able to be alone and my emotions beat down my desire to remain calm and collected.

As soon as I was away from the table and no eyes but those belonging to my reflection could see me, all my thoughts poured from my eyes as hot, sticky tears and puddled from my mouth into drool, like a toddler who was not getting what they wanted.

Sobs retched their way out from my throat, and I threw myself onto the comfort of my bed and furled into myself in an attempt to be as small as an embryo. I wanted to completely disappear. I wanted all the loudness inside my head to be silent. I wanted the voice that was screaming, “I’m growing up! Oh God, I’m growing up!” to cease. I remained like that for what felt like a century. Each second passed slower than the last, and an invisible weight on my back pushed me down into the warmth of my sheets, and my face deeper into my pillow to muffle my wailing. So much time passed that I began to feel like it stopped entirely. To move felt like swimming through molasses. My dad called me downstairs to do dishes. I went back upstairs, and he followed me.

He repeatedly asked me what was wrong, and I resorted to my defense of sputtering, “I don’t know! I don’t know!” like a moron. I always say that when people ask me what’s wrong, because I don’t like to think about myself and find out the answer to their question. What usually felt like a safety blanket to protect me from expressing my feelings felt more like a pile of stones being weighed onto my back. I wanted to explain what was wrong, because for once, I wanted to get help for it.

“I’m growing up,” I croaked out in a dead voice. “I’m not a kid anymore.”

It felt good to finally say. Well, it didn’t feel good. It felt like throwing up, or spitting out dissolving acid. What truly felt good was the bliss washing over me afterwards. I had successfully removed a tumor growing in the emotional part of my heart, and now the feeling of cleanliness was starting to return to my body in the form of drying cheeks and steadied breaths.

My dad gave me some very sound advice. He passed it onto me.

”If you don’t want to grow up, don’t.”

He said some other stuff too, of course. Like how being that sad wasn’t normal, and that I shouldn’t have to feel that way. However, I find that the core advice being simple and sweet is the best way to digest it.

People don’t have to do anything they’re not ready for. While I was cleaning out my closet, whenever I would touch a long-forgotten toy or brush my hand across an old piece of clothing, the memories would run through my head like a mini movie and then, I would give it away. Even though the physical object is gone, the memories still belong to me. Playing with dolls, pretending to be a pirate, running around in circles until I grew dizzy ... They are all still there with me. Maybe now that I have given away the tools used to create those memories, someone else will discover them and make their own.

The beauty of living life is we never really stop being young. No matter how old you are, there will always be someone older who sees you that way. You don’t have to grow up if you don’t want to. You don’t have to stop carrying your childhood memories with you if you’re not ready to give them up. Life is beautiful, and the world does not ever stop being colorful or saturated. You are simply armed with more wisdom as you travel through it.