GROWING UP MEANS LOSING ONE'S EDEN

Carl Pickhardt, a renowned psychologist, reveals, “Whenever I think about a child's entry into early adolescence, I am reminded of the extraordinary title of Thomas Wolfe's novel, You Can't Go Home Again. For me, these words capture the irredeemable loss that young people must endure and the daunting challenge that they must brave as they depart from childhood and face the great unknowns of growing up” (Psychology Today, 2009). Pickhardt perfectly encapsulates why growing up can be so disconcerting. As children come of age, they face numerous losses that preclude them from ever returning to their childlike selves. In particular, they face existential anxiety and distress when they first encounter death, friendship betrayal, insecurity, social rejection, and loss of wonder as respectively seen in Chaim Potok’s The Chosen, Stephen Sondheim’s Into the Woods, Doris Lessing’s “Through the Tunnel,” and Richard Blanco’s Looking For the Gulf Motel. I found myself questioning the purpose of existence when I lost a close friend and when I endured my first real betrayal by a childhood friend. The aforementioned works were invaluable to me, for they helped me see that my experiences, though painful, were a natural part of development as I cultivate my selfhood.

Coming of age is by nature an unsettling process, for children inevitably experience a loss of innocence. During the transition from childhood to adulthood, children typically face death for the first time, which forces them to grapple with the finality of life. In Chaim Potok’s The Chosen, Reuven, who is an adolescent, has just discovered that President Franklin Delano Roosevelt has passed away. Reuven laments, ”I found myself crying…and felt a gnawing emptiness, as though I had been scraped clean inside and there was nothing in me now but a terrible darkness” (Potok, 158). This is the first time that Reuven has had to deal with mortality, and it greatly rattles him, for it forces him to experience an unfamiliar emotion: dread. He feels empty and internally dark, for he sees that a person’s existence is always shadowed by an awareness that one will eventually cease to be. As Reuven tries to make sense of Roosevelt’s death, he hears his father cough a “deep, dry, racking cough that shook his frail body and frightened me terribly” (Potok, 159). Now, Reuven is unnerved, for his father’s cough reminds Reuven that his father, too, will not live forever. To Reuven, a life without his father would be vacuous. When Reuven links President Roosevelt’s demise to his father’s ailing health, he is shaken to his core, for both situations confirm Reuven’s newfound belief that life is senseless and absurd. Reuven has always held a strong belief in God, yet Reuven is now questioning His very existence. This fear truly captures Reuven’s loss of innocence.

I can relate to Reuven’s internal struggles, for I felt completely empty inside after my friend died. The universe suddenly felt cold and indifferent, and life seemed ultimately meaningless. Eventually, I was able to find life in the awareness of death, but at first, I just saw darkness and was terrified of intimacy—terrified of feeling that kind of pain again. So I began to isolate myself, as I didn’t want to risk the possibility of forming a close relationship with somebody who could, without warning, pass away and leave me alone and lost again. I couldn’t handle seeing the pictures of my close friend. I read The Chosen a few months after my friend passed, and I saw myself in Reuven, who eventually develops into a perceptive, compassionate young man, ready to pursue his aspirations. I came to realize that Reuven’s experience with mortality, though painful, was actually a necessary step in his maturation process. Like Reuven, I gradually emerged from my emotional cocoon, and began to find and create my own meaning in life; yet, it was a very difficult process, and a part of me, as a result, will forever feel a sense of sadness and fear.

When children or adolescents experience death and the impermanence of life for the first time, they can no longer see life through innocent eyes. They may feel disoriented, angry, fearful, and directionless. Moreover, they may intentionally withdraw and pull away from someone they love to spare themselves from ever experiencing such pain again. Thus, children experience an intense loss of innocence as they encounter death for the first time. It is a poignant experience that is permanently etched in their minds.

Just as children’s first experience with death can create a painful shift of perspective, so too can their first taste of betrayal. Jack, in Sondheim’s “Giants in the Sky,” from the musical Into the Woods, loses his natural instinct to trust after experiencing deception for the first time. As Jack is lulled into a false sense of security by a female giant, he is unprepared for her husband’s contradictory and aggressive behavior. The male giant senses Jack's vulnerability and intentionally preys on Jack, attempting to eat him for a meal; consequently, Jack feels duped and frightened. Jack relays, ”Only just when you’ve made a friend and all/…And…you don’t feel small/Someone bigger than her comes along the hall/To swallow you for lunch/And your heart is lead and your stomach stone/…And it’s then that you miss all the things you’ve known/And the world you’ve left and the little you own” (Sondheim, 20-24, 26-27). Jack realizes that he was far too naive and trusting. Subsequently, Jack defensively chooses to close off his once-open “heart” so that he will not have to experience that sense of emotional pain again. He longs to return to the security and familiarity of his old life, which he greatly “miss(es),” but he now realizes that once he leaves his familiar world, he can never go back to that idyllic way of viewing life again. Jack is left with a gnawing pit in his stomach, which feels like “stone.”

I, too, long for the innocent, simple days when I thought that everybody was well-intentioned and had nothing but love in their hearts—the days when I wasn’t afraid to trust and be vulnerable. Like Jack, my first brush with friendship betrayal awakened me to an ugly truth: people cannot always be trusted, as people’s intentions are not always pure. At the end of eighth grade, my childhood friend, with whom I had been friends since kindergarten, spread false rumors about me to get closer to somebody I had befriended a year prior. In private, she was telling me that I was one of the kindest people she had ever met yet, simultaneously, she was telling my new friend that I was unkind and manipulative. I couldn’t understand why somebody that truly knew my heart, somebody with whom I entrusted my heart, would so callously dismiss an eight-year friendship. When I confronted her, she told me that she wanted to be popular and needed to save her reputation. She pretended to have remorse, yet she did nothing to fix our friendship, as she slowly pulled away from me. I didn’t initially know how to let go of my pain. Like a floating bath toy that repeatedly pops up no matter how many times you push it back under the water, the hurt just kept resurfacing. Nevertheless, I came to realize that everything in life has a counterpart: I could never truly understand the value of connection if I hadn’t experienced the pain of betrayal. Like Sondheim’s Jack, though, I am still afraid to fully trust again, and that make me miss “the old me”—the girl who wasn’t afraid to be vulnerable and open.

For children who simply delight in the interconnectedness and purity of friendship, betrayal can be unbearable, as they spiral into self-doubt and even self-loathing. Such a loss of innocence can, therefore, be emotionally crippling to children who are just beginning to define themselves in relation to others.

As children strive to define themselves, they tend to become self-conscious, as they inevitably recognize their own flaws. This is the case for Jerry, the protagonist in Lessing’s “Through the Tunnel.” Initially, Jerry is unaware of how others view him—that is, until he encounters older, local boys who each possess the physical strength that Jerry longs for but has not yet developed. Jerry not only feels self-conscious for the first time in their presence, but also feels like a failure, as he realizes that the older boys are intentionally evading him. Lessing writes, “(Jerry) climbed back to the diving rock, and sat down, feeling the hot roughness of it under his thighs. The boys were gathering up their bits of clothing…They were leaving to get away from him. He cried openly, fists in his eyes, …and he cried himself out” (Lessing, 4). Lessing captures Jerry’s emotional state and ultimate loss of innocence through her diction. She employs the word “hot” to depict Jerry’s sense of shame and the word “roughness” to reveal Jerry’s painful awareness that the boys “were leaving to get away from him.” Jerry’s exposure to the older boys has been rough on Jerry, because Jerry now feels that he is not good enough, strong enough, or suave enough, to be accepted by these older boys. This watershed, coming-of-age moment is all too much for Jerry, who proceeds to “(cry) himself out.” Jerry’s dramatic reaction to being rejected fundamentally conveys Jerry’s loss of innocence.

How do children retain their sense of innocence once they begin to notice themselves in relation to others? I personally do not know: I couldn’t. The first time that I felt “other” was in kindergarten. My classmates, who all seemed unusually tall to me, kept patting me on the head and picking me up because I was so much shorter than they were. They would incessantly list shows watched by toddlers, like Caillou, and then insist that I must watch them religiously, as if my short stature meant that I was emotionally juvenile. When my teacher informed the class that we would be putting on a production of “The Three Little Bears,” several of my classmates chimed in, “Well, Cassi will definitely be Baby Bear!” My height—or lack thereof—had defined my identity, and I didn’t like it. Smartly, the teacher cast me as Momma Bear, the tallest girl in the class as Baby Bear, and then proceeded to discipline my classmates for reducing me to a physical attribute. I am not so sure that my teacher’s casting choice had the impact she intended with my classmates, but it temporarily assuaged my wounded heart.

As I got older, I became that much more self-conscious as I couldn’t help but to compare myself to others, as Jerry had in “Through the Tunnel.” Soon, it wasn’t just my height; it was my overall appearance, my disposition, my intellect. I would take note of my finger pads — blackened and bruised from eight years of finger pricking as a Type 1 Diabetic—and uneasily shove my hands in my pocket when talking to a classmate. I would feel the red, thickened patches of skin, from my psoriasis, on the periphery of my face, and wear my long hair down, instead of in a ponytail. I would see a group of girls huddled together, laughing, and feel like I just wasn’t cool enough to be included in their social circle. Nevertheless, I can see that my self-consciousness has also made me more empathetic. Though Lessing’s protagonist, Jerry, is fictional, I could empathize with him and feel his pain. Similarly, I have a newfound compassion for anyone who feels marginalized, and this has made me a better person as I inch towards adulthood. After reading Lessing’s short story, I still feel the sting of my experiences, but I can reframe my experiences now that my perspective has shifted.

As children mature and become aware of others’ perception of them, they often seek out validation from others to feel happy and whole. Consequently, when they are not welcomed into a social group, they tend to question their own self-worth, redefining themselves accordingly. This harrowing experience, which results in a total loss of innocence, is unfortunately an unavoidable part of growing up.

Indeed, loss itself is an inevitable part of the transition from childhood into adolescence. As teenagers gain awareness of themselves and their world, they become acutely mindful that they have lost that idealized vantage point that they once possessed as a child. What’s lost is intangible, but invaluable: it is that special sense of awe and wonder that each person naturally has as a young child but quickly loses as one ages. As author Richard Blanco, in an excerpt from his book of poetry Looking for the Gulf Motel, expresses, everyone wishes that they could freeze moments in time. For Blanco, he would love to see his father, who has since passed away, ”slow dancing with (his) mother on the sliding-glass balcony of The Gulf Motel” at Marco Island. Yet, Blanco knows, at thirty-eight, that he can never go back in time to become that wide-eyed eight-year-old who only saw beauty when he vacationed with his family at The Gulf Motel. He can “pretend for a moment” that nothing has changed—that the man who raised him is “still..alive” and that Blanco himself only sees “dazzling seashells,” not the “condos (that have) ruin(ed) the beaches” or the “golf courses” that have replaced the beautiful “mangroves”—but time marches on without one’s consent or control. Innocence is lost and can never be recaptured, as loved ones perish and one’s knowledge of oneself, others, and life itself creeps in, tainting what once seemed simple and pure.

I experienced this sense of lost innocence when I revisited the Topsfield Fair as an adolescent—not a young child. As I walked down the fairgrounds‘ asphalt paths, which were littered with peanut shells, candy wrappers, and bottle caps, I kept seeing toddlers—toddlers in strollers, toddlers perched atop their father’s shoulders—but almost no adolescent girls like me, with the exception of those manning the booths. I continued to follow each faded, directional sign until I found what I had been looking for—the merry go round. It has always been my favorite ride. I was instantly struck by the horses’ faces. They were peeling, which left each with a warped, demented expression. It made me feel like a part of my childhood was deteriorating right before my eyes. I pushed on, and soon became disoriented by the sound and sight of fried dough sizzling in a pool of oil and the competing smells of cigarettes, popcorn, floral perfume, and fries. I suddenly felt lost, queasy, and deflated. The mystique, the magic, was gone. I desperately wanted to be awed once more by the sounds, smells, and sights of the fair, but I knew that I would never experience the fair the same way again.

Like me, fictional young adults like Reuven, Jack, and Jerry can never return home to a simpler, purer time when life was safe, secure, and comfortable, for developmental experiences have robbed them of their innocence as they’ve come of age. This makes the growing up process jarring. Though rite of passage experiences may leave enduring social and emotional wounds as they shape youths’ identities, young adults must try to reconnect with their innocent, former selves so that they can rediscover the simple joys of life, like oscillating on a swing as the crisp spring air caresses their faces or watching an inchworm as it climbs a silky, green leaf. As they transition into adulthood, young adults must retain that sense of wonder and awe that they possessed as children and stay receptive and open to future life-experiences so that the trauma of life does not dim their inner light.

(Scholastic Writing Award: National Gold Medal)

GROWING UP MEANS LOSING ONE'S EDEN

Photograph taken by Cassi Sullivan