It might sound like it, but I don’t really regret this turn of events, the end of those young and silly years, at least most of the time I don’t. I wonder –oh, how I wonder– about the magic and where it went, not that I have lost it altogether, far from it, it’s just that it is not as ever-present as it once was; but in a way I am glad to have seen the back of those years. They were magical, yes, but they were dark too. The uncertainty, the not knowing, the doubt, those countless nights when I couldn’t sleep, could hardly breathe with the anxiety of it all: was I losing my way or finding it? What did I have to do leave a sweet mark on the world? Would my life ever amount to anything? Would I? Would I?

They were a triumph of optimism over experience, those years, of magic over darkness — much like my childhood, which is what had come before, and the bang-and-a-crash years that followed. I have always been in love with the world and yet entirely unsure as to whether it deserved it; or rather, whether it was going to break my heart. And it did, it often did. It still does, for that matter. But at least now I know I’m on my way, my life does amount to something and so do I.

Just in case the title reminds you of something but you can’t for the life of you remember what: take a look here.