As I reflect on how my life has changed over the last four years, I often get the sense I’m out of my depth. Midweek, I took the time to let my mind wander to wherever it felt like going. The result was not what I expected, but it brought me immense joy, a kind I haven’t felt in nearly a decade.

This nostalgic trip was the result of my rediscovery of “Teen Beach Movie,” a 2013 Disney film I haven’t thought of since it first came out. I’m not usually the type to reminisce about my past, but taking the time to do so was extremely freeing.

With each scene I was taken to another world — not the one set in the movie but in my past. As comical as it seems to sit in my apartment watching a kid’s movie, it was exactly what I needed. It relieved me temporarily of my modern stressors, the feeling of flux I’ve waded in as I contemplate what my future looks like after I graduate in May.

This past year has taxed me mentally, and at times, it progressively feels like nothing is holding me back from the seemingly eternal drag of adulthood responsibilities.

Am I still a kid, or am I an adult? The world seems to treat me like both and neither at the same time, and I don’t even know what to think.

Don’t get me wrong, I look forward to all I will do in the future, but the double consciousness I feel as a college student is immense, and this semester feels like a reckoning. 

This reckoning I struggle with feels like the death of my childhood. It feels like with each passing day, I step further away from the childlike merriment, wonder and emotional freedom I was fortunate enough to experience growing up. 

I feel wracked with immeasurable pressures, and I know I’m not alone in feeling this way. I feel so uncertain about who I am, what I am meant to be and what I am expected to be. 

I’ve applied for law schools only to be rejected. It hurt me to write my personal statement — which felt like an outpouring of a quintessential part of my identity onto a piece of paper — only to see it rejected by a faceless admissions officer.

I’ve struggled mentally to step into my role as an editor at this paper. Do my ideas hold up to the standard of my peers, my superiors or my readers? Am I a strong enough writer to make a difference, to stand alongside my fellow editors, to justify my role on the editorial board? 

I’ve considered countless ideas, most of which will never come to fruition. I constantly hit dead ends investigating subjects. I mostly get rejected attempting to set up interviews or obtain public records. Is this normal, or am I just a bad journalist?

As strange as it sounds, when I watched “Teen Beach Movie,” all these personal challenges disappeared. I was transported to a time when nothing mattered, when everything was free and simple.

At that moment, I was back at home sitting on my carpet floor staring at my grainy gray tubular TV waiting for the countdown to the “Teen Beach Movie” premiere to strike zero like it was New Year’s Eve. In my mind, I was my 11-year-old self again, watching a simple musical I’d been waiting half the summer to watch.

Every stressor faded away. I didn’t have monumentally depressing topics to study or homework to do. There were no interviews I had to set up. There were no challenges balancing schedules for work, friends, family, clubs or school. I didn’t have any law school essays to write.

All that existed at that moment was myself. Watching one of my favorite movies from childhood released me from the modern world, beyond the firmament of maturity into the bliss of childhood simplicity.

Initially, I was worried about writing about this experience. I didn’t want to be taken as some Disney adult obsessed with nostalgic memories and items. I’m not usually this way. But in that moment, I gave myself the grace to simply enjoy something I hadn’t even thought about in a decade.

I wanted to share this experience because it helped me realign myself and recenter my identity. As much as this may be a requiem for a childhood passed, it’s also a call to action for myself and others. 

That childlike wonder we felt only a decade ago does not have to be separate from our contemporary selves. That feeling of just sitting down and enjoying life as it is right now is still possible. 

Every time I get the chance to play poker with my friends, I make it known that I cherish the bond and space we’ve made for each other. Every time I sit down to watch guilty pleasures like ”The Bachelor” or “Love Island” with my girlfriend, I cherish that time spent.

In other words, I reminded myself that I have spaces to escape the world temporarily. I cherish all the people around me and the grace they give me to be fully myself.

For whoever reads this, give yourself grace. Give your fellow humans grace. Cherish your friends. Take the time out of your life to value your personhood. As difficult as life can be, that childhood freedom is not gone. It’s still inside you and always will be. Give yourself the opportunity to fall into that simple freedom again.

Article Summary: “I’m not usually the type to reminisce about my past, but taking the time to do so was extremely freeing.”