I used to live between the gray floors called lines where purple squiggles danced and, together, formed something called words.

I created a brand-new world each time my pen skipped, ran, twirled across the page.

I used to live in a notebook.

The September that I entered Middle School, the process of leaving my notebook for what some call reality began.

Each September, I lost another drop of the creative juices in my brain.

They say it’s called growing up.  That’s not what I call it.

I call it creative oppression, squeezing infinite worlds of complexity into a tiny, miniscule box, convincing so-called naïve minds that everything even people can be categorized, can be labeled, marked by what we decide to call it.

But, what if we’re wrong?  What if calling the young naïve discounts their ability to see the world in its barest form, free of labels and schemas and boxes?  What if the naïve are really the wise because they can see what we can’t?  What do we give up when we grow up?  You can call me Peter Pan of Neverland, but listen.

The drops of creativity that live in our brains can light up the world with its glimmering outstretched arms, and even create a new world, a world where we think to learn instead of memorize to learn, where we inspire each other instead of compete against one another, a world where the darkest alley of despair can be transformed into art.

A world where we can live in a notebook.