by Jordan Berardi
My newborn fingers grip the carefully stitched blanket trapping my flailing arms and legs. My thin blonde hair dusted the top of my tiny head. My eyes are peacefully shut. A faint smile lays on my face. The light pink sheets line my crib and the wooden bars ensure my safety.
Eighteen years later I long for a day when my thoughts were so easily put to rest and the world spun without my knowledge of the sadness it harbors.
As a baby I used to hear the news at 5:00 p.m. and know that dinner time was nearing. As a baby I heard the four beeps of the alarm system and anticipated bed time. As a baby I saw each person equally: someone who would pinch my cheek and then say something in a high-pitched voice to my mother. As a toddler writing meant spelling out my name and my favorite color.
Today, I hear the news and no longer does it trigger my excitement for dinner, instead it diminishes my appetite. Each day it booms with reports of homicides, robberies and kidnappings. Today, the alarm system no longer warns me of my impending bedtime, it triggers sadness because of the sheer fact that humans need an alarm system to feel “safe.” Today, I see hesitance in a single person as they encounter someone who is of a different race, sexual orientation or mental capacity. Today, words are strung together so effortlessly by bullies to tear someones heart apart.
I see hatred spinning webs throughout our society.
I know I will never be able to return to a mindset of ignorance of hatred. I will never lay in that crib again with the same peacefulness cradling my thoughts. But, I have come to realize I must glorify the good. With age comes knowledge. Knowledge of the bad is needed to recognize the good.
As I see the bad swirling into an unmanageable web, I find the loop holes through little acts of love, kindness and innocence. GivesMeHope.com is a website which people can anonymously post small anecdotes that “give them hope.” It’s small things like these that can prove the innocence still remains under the fog of bad.
There's Soda on my Nettie Screen :[ • May 13, 2013 at 6:17 pm
Anon makes a really good point about how bad things always happen, whether we acknowledge them or not. But that’s the thing about happy childhood memories. We remember the good things, because that’s how our toddler brains saw the world. When we learn about the hardships of the world, we lose that feeling of security. Suddenly our rose-colored glasses start to lose some of their luster, and I think that’s what Jordan was trying to express. Children trust their surroundings until they “grow up” and turn into anxious fearful adults. The article is communicating that yes, tragedies are inevitable. But without knowing about hardship, or feeling strong negative emotions, our happiness would be such an under-appreciated perception.
Me • May 13, 2013 at 3:06 pm
You know, nostalgia like this is toxic because it looks back onto cherry-picked memories, wishing for something that can never be replicated. Horrible things happen even while innocence lasts. Innocence is a shelter. Humans are averse to change, but this is a sentiment that has been repeated over centuries, and despite these sentiments, there still have been improvements in this world.