What it is

It's being carefully lifted from a womb that has seen much use in a span of six years
It's being read the secrets of nym, and puddle lane when you only barely understood language
It's being tucked into bed every night and having "stay awake" sung to you until you fell asleep
It's staying up late watching marry poppins and the great mouse detective promising you'll stay awake but you fall asleep.
It's playing in the park with your friends
It's going on fun walks with your dad when you were six years old and there was still SO much to talk about
It's polly pockets, the littlest pet shops,barbies, and spice girls at a friends house that was only a twenty second run away.
It's camping at Nimpkish lake with a family that wasn't even yours, catching fish and eating them for dinner that night.
It's having birthday parties where all you had to worry about was who got which piece of cake, and what was on the cake.
It's biking through bushes and creeks and mud and grass fields and falling down laughing
It's losing guinea pigs under merry-go-rounds and down slides
It's knowing that a boy has a crush on you for the first time
It's waking up at seven o'clock every morning and dancing to "damnit" by Blink 182 in your livingroom
It's going with your friends to the "big woods" instead of the "little woods" and feeling superior in numbers.
It's going to the Comox Mall in groups of ten and listening to a shitty band afterwards because boys you liked were in it
It's your first kiss
It's having fights with teachers and laying down on the school field with tears in your eyes with people who were trying to comfort you by telling you that your eyes were vibrant green
It's drinking juiceboxes and having sandwiches
It's discovering friends that had a common lifestyle,and a common hobby
It's sitting on a dirty old couch covered in horse dander in 36 degree weather when you haven't had anything to eat for 12 hours but you are enjoying yourself to the max
It's coming up with inside jokes that nobody else could ever fucking find the hilarity in
It's sometimes feeling like animals are the only ones you can relate to, and then realizing that your friends actually love you.
It's having friends that were full of fire.
It's having friends that you loved but could never be honest with, and it's hating them afterwards
It's going to your first punk show
It's your first drunken fuck up.
It's being awarded for your first 'A' on an essay and then getting 100% on every essay that followed
It's your first trip to Vancouver alone and the reunion that followed
It's crying over missed friends and then having them call you the next day
It's finding out that ageism is fucked and there are adults who you can talk to about nearly everything
It's visits home
It's horrible camping trips
It's knowing you are going to graduate soon and feeling a complexity of emotions about it
It's sitting on jungle gyms late at night and feeling more like yourself than you have ever felt before.

It's knowing that despite the fuck ups, the cynicism, and the sometimes all too bitter outlook, there have always been people there that cared about you and there have always been people you cared about.
It's knowing that that will never change.