Growing up

A few days back I went outside to get a marker from a nearby stationery store. But here’s the thing, this store isn’t just like any other. I have been going there since I was in second grade. The store is called Student’s Paradise and rightfully so because that shop is heaven to me.

I was an artistic kid who loved painting and sketching so I used to regularly visit that place. What makes that place even more special is that it’s where I had shared some of the fondest memories with my mother. Every day, in the evening, after getting off the bus, my mother and I would walk home together and stop by that store to get anything I wanted. I usually used to get those 2 rupees stickers or fancy pencils and sometimes some stationery item which I would have seen one of my friends have, I used to ask her to get me one as well. At first, she would hesitate but then after a little bit of convincing, she used to say yes. You can imagine what a huge collection of stationery I used to have.

As I started growing up, my mom fell sick and I started walking home alone. The stationery items were reduced to essentials and even the route to walk home changed. I stopped painting and sketching. The old color set, crayons, brushes, and sketchbook got buried under my academic books.

But every time I went there, with a warm smile the man behind the counter greeted me and I would get my boring adult stuff instead of glitter pens or scented erasers. After the Pandemic, I entirely stopped going there. I didn’t need pens anymore in the digital world.

So, walking there a few days back I realized how long it has been since I had been to my heaven and that’s when my inner child’s heart broke. The store has permanently closed.

I stopped walking and just stood there in front of the closed shutter. “It’s gone” I mumbled.

I always wanted to grow up fast just like every other kid. We thought being an adult was much easier. But it’s not. Growing up also means outgrowing the things that meant the world to us. The things, places, and people who used to mean so much to us just become memories. And it sucks because we only think about them once they are gone. I never even bothered to ask that man’s name nor did I check up on him during the pandemic even though I knew him for more than a decade. That’s what all of us do. We outgrow the old days. And when life brings us back to them we realize everything was so much simpler back then.

Now that store, the place where I shared the happiest moments with my mother is just a memory. There’s not much I can do now that it’s gone, alas the only wish that remains in my heart is the wish that the second grade me would have slowed down a bit, that the 8th grade me would have taken that route that led to the store, that as a grown-up I would have continued painting and found an excuse to visit the place from time to time. As the inner child holds on tightly to the memories the only wish that remains is I wish I never grew up so fast.