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The one thing I miss most when I think back to my childhood is hope. I miss the feeling - no the absolute certainty - that everything is possible, that I can make all my wishes come true ... when I grow up. I do not know when childhood (in the clinical sense) ends. Perhaps it ends when a child becomes an adolescent, or, more likely, when a child is officially recognized as an adult by the society he or she lives in.

Childhood is defined differently in different parts of the world, of course. In many countries, children stop being children at puberty. Soon after they become adolescents, girls may marry and shoulder heavy household responsibilities, and a boy is expected to do a man's work as soon as he physically can. It is funny, when you think of it, that in most of these countries the official age when a child legally becomes an adult is slightly older than in most of Europe and the U.S. But I digress from the subject of this article ....

For me, childhood did not end at puberty or adolescence. My very personal definition of childhood is the period in my life when I still believed so strongly in so many different things; when I still thought I could, and certainly would, do so much that would fulfill all of my personal wishes, my endless dreams and my ambitious desires. My childhood did not end when I turned sixteen or eighteen. It did not end when I was twenty-one, and officially came of age and became an adult, nor even in my late twenties. I still thought, then, that IT was coming. My life, as I wanted it to be, was still in the future.

My childhood ended when my life began. It ended when the endless possibilities I had envisioned became limited, when the choices I had to make were, increasingly, dictated by reality and circumstance. It ended when I woke up one morning and realized that hope was gone forever.

My hopes now are for other people. I hope for my children, whom I love dearly, for example. The decisions I make in life all seem to be connected to others too. There is a world of difference between living for yourself and your dreams, and living for others, no matter how close to your heart these others are.

I have had a good life. I am almost sixty years old now, and I have two wonderful boys and a loving husband. I have travelled extensively and made many friends. Nevertheless, when I look back on my childhood, I feel a sharp, anguished nostalgia because I know that I can no longer say, "When I go grow up ..."

Learn more about this author, Sawsan Elzayyat.
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