Growing Up Sucks..................

There comes a defining moment in every ones life when their innocence is shattered.
This is a story about one of those times......


I found this story by Shaz @ STORG.com...
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It began in the first grade, a warm spring day. We were growing closer to the end of the school year and everyone was anticipating the summer that was just around the corner. I was playing in the play yard after lunch, sitting under my favorite tree, poking a stick into the dirt. This was my favorite part of the day. My stomach was full of cafeteria pizza and I was ready to draw pictures in the dirt.........

As I sat there in my plaid uniform jumper, caking dirt on my hands, I noticed something bright in the dirt. It was pink, slightly smaller than a grain of rice. I picked it up, and looked it over. Then I looked at the ground again, to find that the base of my favorite tree held many of these tiny sprinkles. I began picking them up, one by one. This one was green. This one was blue. Glitter-flecked, orange, purple, brown, white! I gathered as many as I could before the bell rang, and pocketed them.

The next day, I anxiously waited for lunch to finish. Finally, the bell rang and I dashed to my tree in hopes of finding the last of them. To my surprise, there were MORE! I spent the break carefully picking up each piece, and I sat admiring them.

I glanced up at the tree. Suddenly, I knew! I knew the cause of this! It made perfect sense! Fairies must be living inside this tree, and they put their magic sprinkles there as a gift for me. Obviously, they appreciated my artistic doodling in the dirt. I smiled at the tree and whispered, "I won't tell anyone you're here, it's okay!"
For the next week, I found my fairy sprinkles waiting for me. I'd carefully gather them, and then I'd thank the tree for such lovely gifts.

The next week, the only sprinkles that I could find were the ones I had overlooked the week before. I was sad, but I reasoned that fairies must be migratory. They can't stay in one place for long or else they'll be discovered. I took great care to thank the tree for sharing the fairies with me.
A year passed. I was in second grade now. I still had the small jar of fairy sprinkles hidden in my room. Again, it was spring time. Again, I was sitting under my favorite tree. It caught me off guard to see the return of the sprinkles. I gathered them with great care, thanked the tree, and took them home to be added to my collection. It was the same as the year before. The sprinkles lasted a week while the fairies lived in their temporary home in my favorite tree. Every day, I'd talk to them as I gathered my treasure. I'd tell them about my classes, about boys, about my family. I figured that they shared their gift with me, they should at least know me better. So I shared my life with that tree, and thanked it every day. And then the fairies would leave, and I would move on to another grade, and other year, a life away from the last.

The fairies came every year. My third and fourth grade were filled with the same anticipation of springtime, and my chance to talk to the fairies again. They were so generous with their gifts, and I left them little gifts with stick art in the dirt.

But that play yard was only for students between 1st and 4th grade. After the fourth grade, I stayed in the same building, but the older kids occupied a different play yard, which had a big field, but no trees in it. So on the Friday of the week of the fairy gifts, I explained this to the tree. I told the fairies that I wouldn't be able to return the next year. I thanked them profusely, and told them I hoped with all my heart that they might pass the legacy to another child, that they could give him or her the gifts that they had shared with me over the course of four years. "My jar is nearly full, anyway," I explained. The bell rang, and with tears in my eyes, I thanked the tree one last time.
A few years passed, and life had changed many times over. I never forgot about the tree, and the secret of the fairies. I kept my jar of fairy sprinkles in my closet, on the shelf. But I had grown up and had a more adult view on the world. My life was busier, more involved.

It was seventh grade now. Girls were getting boyfriends and boobs and makeup. We were in Mrs. Pryor's class. It was a warm, spring day, our grades were already tallied, and the teachers were just passing time before summer break began. Mrs. Pryor was explaining a project to us. First you draw your picture, then you will lay a layer of glue, and then you will sprinkle these tiny plastic grains to the page, as needed, and- tadaa, you have art.

These grains looked oddly familiar, as I created my masterpiece. But it wasn't until the class, I, together with the rest, carried our papers outside and dumped the excess, loose sprinkles around my favorite tree, that I realized that the fairies never were.

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