Rites of Passage

A day out in the park in such a weather is always nice, though she is very well aware that any given day could have any kind of weather, be it rain or shine, you can never tell. There is a children’s playground right next to the main path, while a football field is approximately a hundred yards away.

As she walks along the path that she had become so familiar with over the past year, it is hard for her to shut away those feelings, even in a day like this.

Regret, is what she feels. Or not, remorse might be a better word to describe her feeling. They had those moments, didn’t they? But nothing came to fruition. All the time she considers whether it would have been different if she did something different.

Yes, by many people’s standards, she is not…”conventional”. In cases like these, most of her friends would have jumped into it without a second thought. Young heads were governed by young minds of passion and instinct, as for her, rational and logic comes first.

Then as she walks past the children’s playground, she sees a boy of probably twelve or thirteen, staring rather intently towards the group of little kids enjoying themselves on the swings, sliding, shouting, cheering. She can see that the boy is struggling. But she knows that she could not help.

For wisdom comes with age. Maybe it came a little too early for her. With wisdom one begins to wield more caution and hesitancy. There was too much to consider. That is why, she often believes, things remains sparks where it should have been a disaster.

Could she ever return to the same point in the future, that she may try taking a different path? No one could tell for certain. The boy finally turn and start to walk away, seemingly decided to not join the kids at the playground. He stop right next to the football field, where a group of boys are playing 5-a-sides football.

It is not the time yet. She knows she does not fit anywhere just yet. There is a need to do a little of soul-searching, as the boy must now try to determine his own identity, rework it and build on it for the future. The regret, or remorse, would always remain, adding onto whatever amount of wisdom that is already available, to help decide what to do in the future.