It seems like we spend our lives looking forward to “something”. In elementary, I couldn’t wait to be old enough to babysit. Middle school, I couldn’t wait to be in high school and have a boyfriend. In high school, I couldn’t wait to graduate, move out, and be on my own. However, now I’m in college and I would honestly give anything to go back to the simple days. The days that were spent learning how to write in cursive and worrying about who I was going to play with at recess. The weekend nights that ran together, because they were always spent with my best friend playing Guitar Hero and drinking sugar-loaded energy drinks. The days when I dreaded walking home from school, because I had to lug my saxophone case up the hill to my house. The days that began with my dad’s favorite line, “And remember– rock and roll lives forever”. And the days that ended with homework, supper and some reality TV show with my mom.

We all have our memories that we wish we could bring back to reality. What if we were given the opportunity to go back to a specific moment in our lives, not to redo, but to appreciate better? Would you go back to when your grandparent was alive and healthy, or to when it was still “cool” to hangout with your parents? Instead of being so caught up in the materialistic things during Christmas, would you maybe try to appreciate the time you had with your family? Does your phone have anything to do with some of the memories you wish you could bring back to reality? Unintentionally, so many of us get hung up on the petty things. Somewhere along the lines, the “only” way to capture a moment is to take a picture for Snapchat or Facebook. We’ve forgotten how to actually live in the moment, and appreciate what is going on in the world around us.

When you’re young, you have a tendency to be naïve and take things for granted. As for me, I thought that my life would stay the same forever. However, while I was caught up in the typical teenage girl life, I realized that things were slowly changing right before my eyes. Before I knew it, I was attending my last prom, last One Act and show choir performance, and then my own graduation ceremony. I realized it was too late when it was the last summer before the reality of college began, and I was saying goodbye to my best friend since preschool. It was already too late, when I realized that I forgot to live up my high school memories; because like they say— you’ll never get them back.