What Is An Epiphany Essay

At some point and time in life, everybody has an epiphany. I like to call epiphanies “aha” moments or a moment when you figure something out and it changes your life and the way you view things. I am sure over the years, I have had plenty of epiphanies, like discovering my fingers and toes as a baby or learning how to ride a bike, but the only epiphany that sticks with me is the one that I had the summer before my senior year of high school. When I was little the future was so far away. I did not really care about what I wanted to be when I grew up. I always thought to myself, “Oh, I do not have to worry about that.” Now, everything has come and gone. I had not even sat down to take the time and reflect on the journey of life that I’d taken.
My eyes had finally opened. The world I knew lost its innocence. I realized that growing up was not what I hoped it would be. Being a child, I thought I could not wait to grow up. I thought I would have so many friends, I would graduate from high school, go to college, start my career then someday have a family, but I never, not once, thought about the process and the steps I would have to take to get through all of that. I thought that being a teenager was going to be the best times of my life, but I have learned that is far from the truth.
Being a teenager has been one of the most difficult moments in my life. The people around me change, tremendously. I do not mean just physically, but their character changes. I did not know growing up, that I would lose friends, but this is what I could not wait to grow up for, right? While being a teenager, true friends are the hardest thing to find. Every single day, I am surrounded by people who are not really true. Some of the people I thought were “friends” talk behind my back, they will lie to my face, and they will not truly like me. Well, not for who I truly am, anyway. Then there are those times when I did not have any friends at all, but that is just a step I had to
overcome. Growing up hurts, it is full of nostalgia.
Remembering the old cartoons I used to laugh my butt off to, the times when I could not stay up passed nine o’clock, having a pure untouched mind of my own. The hardest decision I ever had to make was what ice cream flavor I wanted. Why was I so ready want to run away from my childhood? What happened to having a good time playing outside with my friends or siblings? I was eager to grow up already. I wanted to get out of school as soon as possible. I wanted to go away to college to be away from my parents. I wanted to live in a new apartment, a new city. Yes, I would be alone then. Yes, I would be able to do whatever I wanted to do. Yes, it would be my house, but it is not the home I grew up in. It does not have that warm feeling. I will just justify it by saying at least I am away from the “naggy” parents, but one day they will be gone. I am getting older, they are getting older, too. I will get homesick every now and then. I will miss my mom’s cooking and playing with my brother outside. Unfortunately, once I grow up, it is gone, and there will be nothing I can do about
that. If only I had a remote control for life. I would go back to the good times, forward the sad times, relive the awesome times, and pause the moments that are slipping through my fingers. But time will not stop. Time waits for no one. That is what memories are for. Sure, some may not be as happy as others, but they are proof that I lived, I had a good time, I cried, and I'm human. My memories are with me forever, to teach me, to remind me, to show me that growing up is part of life. I am born, I grow up, and I die. That’s how it's been, and that’s how it will always be.