Personal Narrative: Loss Of Self-Innocence

Everybody grows up whether they want to or not, but the pace that people grow up at is rather diverse. In today’s world, many educated people relate the act of growing up and losing self-innocence quite closely. In my case, I had a somewhat hasty childhood because I experienced the pains and sufferings of the real world at such a young age. Pre-school was a joyful time for most but others faced dark realizations. The year 2003 was another year to rebuild families and regain trust in human kind. Because of these said times, many families forced their kids to face the real world much quicker than expected; but at the Rosso’s, the four year old picture perfect son kept his innocence until the near future. As a four year old, live events seemed perfectly normal to me because I have yet to realize the wrong doings most do in this world. I started my second year of Pre-school rather swimmingly and it flew by quickly. I
made plenty of new friends, but I also met a few enemies; yet the ratio between the two was extraordinary. Days go by as I try to color in between the lines to the best of my ability. Friendships grow and the numbers of days to the end of the year become smaller. But out of nowhere—everything slows down. It was an average Tuesday morning when everything “went down”.
I had my best friend by my side and absolutely zero worries. As soon as we got finished with our craft section for the day, we had free time. As a kid in Pre-School, there was not anything better than having free time to grow friends and evolve social skills needed in life. Jake, my best friend, and I ran over to the box full of blocks as soon as Mrs. Pockman let us go. He grabbed one end and I grabbed the other, working together to complete one common goal. We began to assemble our favorite creation, a skate park. A skate park to four year olds was a ramp made out of building blocks that we were able to skate down with using a block as a skateboard. The time finally arrives, we have finished our masterpiece and we were ready to shred. After about 30 minutes of Jake and I switching off turns and aiding each other down the slope, the time came. I slid down the ramp and came to a swift stop, I picked up my disproportional four-year-old head slowly and I met eyes with the class bully,
Zach.
My heart was racing as I began to tremble inside my own skin. I repeatedly looked over at Jake and back at Zach to see if Jake would provide any comfort. My eyes drifted downwards towards the scuffs on his brand new sneakers as I watched every step he took towards our magical creation. My mind became empty and my mouth was dry, I couldn’t defend the skate park and myself, so I made a costly decision. I blinked my eyes, and I was standing flat footed on the ground, near what was left of our skate park. My eyes felt unnaturally heavy and the muscles on my face turned upside down—I didn’t know how to react. It was a new feeling for me, a feeling that I hated with every ounce of my body, the feeling of my innocence being snatched up in front of my eyes for the very first time. My world was caving in, all four corners coming into the middle to crush my Pre-School experience and me. I haven’t had an eye-opening occasion prior to this moment; therefore having an action of hate purposely directed towards me, an innocent child, was disheartening. My perspective on the world changed forever and scarred the way I look at everyday people. Some people have to grow up because they need due to life events, but others, like myself, are chosen to be ripped apart at such a young age to experience a tragedy against our own will, to get our innocence taken away.