It’s one of those memories that’s so imbedded in my mind’s eye that I remember what I was wearing. My outfit, of course, meticulously planned and executed, was a critical piece of the mosaic of that day.

And so was my makeup. At fifteen years old, the fact that I had recently been granted permission to wear mascara and clear lip gloss was more than a rite of passage. It was a desperately-craved form of expression, yes, but moreover, it felt like a gateway to the future me.

Which was exactly where my sights were set on this summer day, as my mom and I waited to board a train to New York City for a ballet. We were headed to the place I was certain was my calling.

A place my soul thought it was ready to be.

So I couldn’t have known that as my mom approached the ticket booth to request “two round trip tickets to Grand Central,” that my grown-up bubble, which was teetering on my high heels, was about to be burst. 

But that’s exactly what happened when the station employee, sitting staunchly behind his plexiglass partition, glanced up, flicked his eyes over to me, and responded, “one adult and one child?”

My mom paused, then asked: “How old is a child?”

“Twelve,” he said.

My chest, previously erect with pride and confidence, sunk.

She then proceeded to repeat her request more succinctly – two adult round trip tickets – to which the man, seemingly annoyed that my mom wasn’t catching on to his offer, gave her a final chance.

“Ma’am,” he said, “I’m going to ask you one more time: One adult and one child?”

She stalled. Even then, I knew she was weighing my feelings in the process, but ultimately, she opted to take the deal.

It was like someone flipped a switch. Although my brain knew this was about a kind gesture to save a few bucks on a train ticket, my heart started to wobble. And by the time I was sitting in the sticky maroon seat en route to Grand Central, black tears of perfectly-applied mascara rained down my cheeks. 

So there I sat, head hung, someone who just minutes earlier felt like they were on the precipice of adulthood, now unable to control the child within who felt embarrassed and ashamed.

The irony only made it harder to stop the tears.

My mom, God bless her soul, attempted to reason with me as a form of consoling. She told me a time would come when I’d be grateful that I looked younger than I did.

And while it likely goes without saying, this was totally lost on 15-year-old me.

But when I think back on this story, and as I reach a point in my life where – sometimes – my mom’s premonition reigns true, I find myself wondering about our preoccupation with the past and future.

How even (especially) as adults our focus is on who we’re becoming, or turning the clock back to feel like, look like who we used to be.

It seems like missing the point of living.

To be in such a hurry to get where we’re going only to arrive with envy for where we’ve been.

Because I don’t know about you, but you couldn’t pay me to go back to 15.

And while I pray to have many destinations left on my journey, I’m no longer in such a rush to be anywhere but here.