Do not ever be reluctant to live by your heart
CARMEN GEORGE

While I rummaged through the drawers of my desk in an unsuccessful attempt to find my CD case, I was surprised when my fingers instead grasped an old, tattered photo of my second grade self smiling back at me.
There I was again, sitting on a familiar faded white picnic table doing the peace sign with my left hand, wearing the most ridiculous Pocahon-tas shirt ever created, and smiling so much that there were huge dimples in both my cheeks. In the background some boys were doing a highly comical reenactment of Star Wars, while some little girls were skipping rope and playing four-square.

As I continued to gaze at this photo, I slowly became completely dumfounded and at a total loss for words. “How could this girl be me,” I thought to myself. Until that moment I had almost forgotten that childhood had ever even existed, as if the girl in this photo had been an imposter Carmen who had lived a different life from my own. But as I continued to look, I remembered. And the more I remembered, the more I realized that I still had so much to appreciate and learn from the little girl in that photograph.

This doesn’t mean, however, that I was suddenly inspired to bring back “cootie shots,” the sticker club or Power Rangers, I am quite content with leaving those things in the past, (with the exception of nap time).
What I’m truly talking about are all of those golden rules and values we lived so dutifully by as children. I want to bring back truth, love and generosity completely back into my life so that I’m fully immersed in it. As I looked harder at that photo, I saw myself at my purest form, unaltered and exactly the way my heart and soul wanted to be. Isn’t that the way we should still be as teens? Why would anyone of us choose to wear an artificial mask when we can have absolute happiness by simply being ourselves?

Truth be told, as I continued to hold that photo in the palm of my hand, I actually began to admire that little second grader. I may even dare to say that I was suddenly proud of that goofy snapshot that I used to work so hard to hide from my mother when she cracked out the embarrassing photo albums of my brother and me to all existing, family, friends and neighbors. That ridiculous Pocahontas shirt was wonderful because it was completely me. Do not ever be reluctant to live by your heart whether you’re seven, 17 or 70.