There was a time when so many things came naturally — creating without thought, playing without limits, imagining worlds that felt as real as the one outside. There was a certain innocence in that fearlessness: climbing trees, speaking to strangers, dreaming endlessly, with no idea that one day our hands would be bound by fear or expectation.

Those drawings, those stories, were more than play — they were life itself, cast in color and word, blueprints for who we might become. We built treehouses two or three stories high, every corner carefully imagined, and dreamed endlessly because dreaming was all we knew to do.

Somewhere along the line, we learned the weight of things — the weight of time, of judgment, of living in a body that must perform. Imagination did not disappear; no, it sank beneath layers of practicality and hesitation. Over time, those layers hardened, making it harder to reach what once came easily. Days blur into routine, and curiosity — once loud and restless — grows quiet, almost invisible.

Life moves on, and the places that once nurtured us vanish. Stagnation creeps in quietly, like a product past its expiration date left on a shelf. Emotions that were once steady and neutral grow heavy — tangled, beyond recognition. The more time passes, the more persistent they feel.

Yet there is still longing — a quiet, insistent yearning to return, not to the past, but to the part of ourselves that still breathes in wonder. To move without fear, to create without judgment, to dream as if the world itself were open and new — to find that freedom again would be to find home again.