ABOUT INNOCENCE

I did everything someone does before moving out. I went through all my belongings, one by one and decided to throw away many of them. I had only one box left to check. But I couldn’t get it done.  Something was telling me that it was an important box. And that’s why I took my time to open it. I always get delayed when objects, or situations, that question myself come my way. 

One morning, some days before the big day, I did it. I kneeled down and opened the box. There it was. Between books, clothes and old photos, I found my Innocence. Although I remembered it a little bit differently, I didn’t take long to recognize it. I confirmed that the passing of time can make memories get distorted.

I stared at my Innocence and it got inside my body through my eyes. Images started flying by like seconds. I remembered those afternoons that I spent riding horses, I saw my imaginary friends, my mother’s kisses, my youngest smile. I went back to my childhood. To the last pieces that were left from it in me. I asked myself when was the day I decided to save my Innocence inside that box. I had the feeling I didn’t save it, but hid it. 

It was in my early teenage years. That phase in which we are pushed to act like adults. Those days when I learned to make double meaning jokes. Just before meeting the irony. It was back then when making fun of other people became something cool. Being innocent, little by little, meant turning into someone foolish. 

Now, with my Innocence between my fingers I can’t avoid asking how come I survived so many years denying and hiding it. My Innocence started talking and explained that unlike the other objects that were inside the box, innocence is not something that exists. It simply IS a state of purity. A state you can only arrive with an open heart. Like the one children have. It also told me that innocence is eternal even if it seems hidden since it is not an object, but a state of being. It was at that moment when I started crying. I remembered all the times that I hurt myself for not carrying it around. 

When I finished crying, my Innocence hugged me. I looked at my hands to check if something on my body had changed because for a moment, I felt like a young girl again.

Before I said goodbye, I asked how I could go out to the streets dressed up with innocence without getting hurt.

-Oh! That’s only for brave people – my Innocence answered.