Inspiring Messages From The Wonder Years That Speak To Your Inner Child

I get by with a little help from my friends

Friends

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Some people pass through your life and you never think about them again. Some you think about and wonder what ever happened to them. Some you wonder if they ever wonder what happened to you. And then there are some you wish you never had to think about again. But you do.

Your first love

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Once upon a time there was a girl I knew that lived across the street. Brown hair, brown eyes. When she smiled, I smiled. Every single thing that happened to me that mattered, in some way, had to do with her. That day we promised each other that we'd always be together. It was the kind of promise that could only come from the hearts of the very young.

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Maybe we both realized that growing up doesn't always have to be a straight line, but a series of advances and retreats. Maybe we just felt like swinging. But whatever it was, Winnie and I made an unspoken pact that day to stay kids for a little while longer

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And so Winnie and I had our one slow dance after all. But things wouldn't be the same between us. We were getting older. All we could do was close our eyes and wish that the slow song would never end.

Your own little world

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There was a time when the world was enormous: spanning the vast, almost infinite boundaries of your neighborhood. The place where you grew up, where you didn't think twice about playing on someone else's lawn. The street was your territory that occasionally got invaded by a passing car. It was where you didn't get called home until after it was dark. And all the people, and all the houses that surrounded you were as familiar as the things in your own room.

Fitting in

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In 7th grade, who you are is what other 7th graders say you are. The funny thing is it's hard to remember the names of the kids you spent so much time trying to impress.

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I guess in a way we are all odd man out, until we find the match that makes us even. Someone who challenges us to be our best. Someone who understands us, even at our worst. I was beginning to appreciate how rare a thing that was.

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As seventh grade wore on, I began to have nightmares. I'm walking into a sort of a - a cave. A long dark tunnel. I think Paul and Winnie are with me. But then - then - they're not. I'm all alone. I don't even want to go into the cave - I'm, I'm terrified. But I just know that I have to keep going - deeper, and deeper. So deep, it's like I can't even remember what the daylight is like anymore, and suddenly - I'm in second period math class. In pajamas. With feet! I guess I was under a lot of stress. There are a lot of things about junior high life that might seem simple to an outsider... but they're not. Take the fifteen minutes before homeroom every morning. What you do with those fifteen minutes says pretty much everything there is to say about you as a human being.

Puberty

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Adolescence is a battle. A life-or-death mission into hostile territory. You tiptoe through minefields. Dodge bullets. Try to do the right thing... in a crazy time. But war has another side. The noble side. Forging friendships between improbable comrades. Uniting men. Bringing together the good... the bad... the ugly. Along around ninth grade, one thing was clear. In the battle of growing up... junior high school was basic training. Not that any of us had actually enlisted in this army. Still, we'd learned one thing. We'd learned how to survive. It was all a matter of balance. Poise. Keeping your head down. Avoiding the war. Until, that is... the war came to you.

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If there's one way to describe adolescence, it might be this...It's a time of life that pits hope against fear and logic against prayer.

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I was 15. I slept under a roof my father owned, in a bed my father bought. Nothing was mine. Except my heart… and my fears. And my growing knowledge that not every road was going to lead home anymore

Love

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All our young lives we search for someone to love. Someone who makes us complete. We dance to a song of heartbreak and hope. All the while wondering if somewhere, somehow, there's someone perfect, who might be searching for us.

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Have you ever been in love? Horrible isn't it? It makes you so vulnerable. It opens your chest and it opens up your heart and it means that someone can get inside you and mess you up. You build up all these defenses, you build up a whole suit of armor, so that nothing can hurt you, then one stupid person, no different from any other stupid person, wanders into your stupid life…You give them a piece of you. They didn't ask for it. They did something dumb one day, like kiss you or smile at you, and then your life isn't your own anymore. Love takes hostages. It gets inside you. It eats you out and leaves you crying in the darkness, so simple a phrase like 'maybe we should be just friends' turns into a glass splinter working its way into your heart. It hurts. Not just in the imagination. Not just in the mind. It's a soul-hurt, a real gets-inside-you-and-rips-you-apart pain. I hate love

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It was hopeless. I'd never felt pain like this before in my entire life. It felt, wonderful.

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Sometimes to keep growing together, you have to grow apart. If you're lucky you can get a second chance with the one you love. Sometimes luck isn't enough. Love can kill you..It can tear you apart. But it can bring you back together

Growing Up

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Growing up isn't easy, no matter how old you are. It's all a matter of time & luck. And if you're very lucky, maybe love.

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Change is never easy. You fight to hold on. You fight to let go.

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When you're a little kid you're a bit of everything; Scientist, Philosopher, Artist. Sometimes it seems like growing up is giving these things up one at a time.

On suffering

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Men and women suffer alone for the choices they've made. And young boys full of confusion, full of fear, full of love and courage, grow up stealthily in their sleep

Family

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When it came to surveillance, the KGB had nothing on my mother

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I guess my older brother hated my guts for something i had done a long time ago that he could never forgive me for: i had been born.

And to make matters worse, i had stayed.

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For me, that year Christmas stopped being about tinsel and wrapping paper, and started being about memory. At first I was disappointed. Until I learned that memory is a way of holding on to the things you love, the things you are, the things you wish to never lose. And I learned from Winnie, that in a world that changes too fast, the best we can do is wish each other Merry Christmas.

Life

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Growing up happens in a heartbeat. One day you're in diapers, the next day you're gone. But the memories of childhood stay with you for the long haul. I remember a place, a town, a house like other houses, a yard like a lot of other yards, on a street like a lot of other streets. And the thing is, after all these years , I still look back, with wonder.