i am...

So I was cleaning out my oh so cluttered room today (yes, I'm a pack rat) and while in the middle of weeding out my drawer full of papers, I found this worksheet that we had to fill out in my Directions class Freshman year in high school. It was titled "I am!" and it gave you beginning phrases that you had to complete. This is what I wrote...

I am a daydreamer
I wonder how things got the way they are
I hear people laughing when others are crying
I see myself going somewhere in the future
I want the world to be a safer place
I am here

I pretend to hear something when I really don't
I feel the way I want to feel
I touch a hand when it is reached out
I worry about my family
I cry when I watch movies that make me cry
I am fearful

I understand the way people feel at times
I say things that don't usually come out right
I dream about things that will never be
I try to be there when people need me
I hope I live up to at least a hundred
I am calm

I am (my name was written here)

After reading through it, I couldn't remember writing any of it at all. It's a little corny, but it got to me for some reason. I feel like I knew myself so much better back then than I do now. I wrote it about ten years ago and you would think that after ten years, I would know myself a lot better now than I did before. For some reason, after sifting through the huge stack of papers, I feel like I had so much more creative energy back then; I had more conviction; I knew where I stood. What happened? I'm ten years older and I filled out that paper again and this is what I wrote...

I am scared
I wonder where I'll be in a year
I hear myself thinking a lot
I see my parents getting old
I want a job I love
I am learning to be more independent

I pretend to be okay when I'm not
I feel lost
I touch the stuffed animal I used to love
I worry about the future
I cry when I'm sad
I am confused

I understand that there are people out there who are in way worse situations than I am
I say put myself out there
I dream of owning a home one day
I try the best I can
I hope things work out the way I plan
I am waiting

I am (my name goes here)

So after filling it out again and reading through it, I just feel old. I was more creative back then and I did have more conviction. The answers are so different. I see the youthfulness and the optimism in the original one and then I see the maturity and the fearfulness in the second. I've lost that child inside of me that made me feel optimistic and hopeful, and I'm hoping to find it again. I am...looking for what I've lost.