the magic of childhood is its forgetting, but also its remembering
The familiar blue and white walls of the school shimmered in the sunlight, and suddenly, a rush of memories flooded in.
I wasn’t expecting it to hit me the way it did.
And just like that, the years folded away like paper. I was standing there, but I wasn’t 24 anymore. I was six. Messy hair jammed into a neat ponytail, clutching a school bag too big for my hands. Even though I’ve lived in a dozen different cantonments, packing and unpacking dreams, with every move, this one was special.
Gwalior. 18 years ago.
This was the place where my mind stopped being just a sponge and started being a camera, clicking moments into memories I never knew would matter so much. Stepping through those gates felt like opening a dusty treasure chest. The kind you forget is even yours... until you find it one afternoon, sitting patiently in the attic.
This wasn’t just a school. It was a world. A world built on crayon drawings, lopsided handwriting, and whispered spooky stories shared over hurried lunch breaks. (Hurried lunch breaks, because we always saved our lunchtime to explore the spooky corners of our school and trade stories that made our hearts race with that strange, wonderful kind of fear.) But more than anything else, it was a world where we were fearless.
We lived as if everything was possible, because, back then, it was. I could almost see her, this smaller, wilder version of me; stepping in for the very first time. Heart hammering with excitement. Eyes so wide you could probably see the whole world reflected in them. Everything felt gigantic back then. The grown-ups. The hallways. Even the idea of making a new friend was an adventure. But we did it anyway. No overthinking. No second-guessing. Just open hearts and unstoppable feet.
Growing up isn't like that.
Nobody tells you, but somewhere along the line, the world gets heavier. You learn that things aren't just good or bad. They're messy. Complicated. You realize that apologies sometimes don’t come. That not everyone will clap when you succeed. That love; oh, love isn't always enough to fix things. And honestly? It's exhausting sometimes. I know, I can relate.
But standing there, feeling the sun kiss my skin exactly the way it must have all those years ago, I felt something lift. A weight I didn’t even know I was carrying. It was like touching solid ground after swimming in rough seas. Life wasn’t perfect back then either. I mean, a lost cherished belonging felt like a heartbreak too big for my tiny heart. A squabble with a friend could leave me blinking back hot tears. But those sorrows were small. Temporary. Easily healed with a hug or a good story or a second round of hide and seek. Being a child was like wearing an invisible armor, an armor made of wonder and wildness. We didn’t need to try to be resilient. We just were. And maybe that’s the magic.
Not that everything was perfect, but we saw the good so much more easily: our imaginations wrapped sadness in softness, making life just a little more bearable.
This place held other treasures too. It’s where I made one of my first best friends. We would visit the old city church every Sunday morning, our little shoes kicking up the dust and munching on ‘Chulbule’ (I still feel it’s so much better than Kurkure. :p) That's where my love for churches began, a love that stuck. Even now, when the world feels too loud, that's where I go, to find calm.
Would I want to visit this place again soon? Maybe not for a long while.
Some memories are meant to stay untouched, wrapped in their original glow. I don’t want to overwrite them with newer, older versions of myself. I want to keep them as they are: wild, fearless, and a little bit magical. Because here's what I’ve realized: The magic of childhood isn’t just the moments themselves. It’s the way our minds protected us, allowing us to forget the little hurts but remember the glittering joys. It’s the dual gift of selective memory, shielding and shaping us at the same time.
Those small moments? They are proof that life is beautiful. That even when the world gets hard, we carry a secret weapon inside us: the memory of who we once were.
And if we listen closely to that little six-year-old within us, we realize something even more powerful:
We were unstoppable then.
And we still are.
