Some things stay.
They slip through the cracks of years, surviving every move, every heartbreak, every version of who we’ve been. They’re the small joys that never demanded to be kept, yet somehow always were.

I used to believe adulthood meant leaving childish things behind. But lately I think maturity is remembering which ones to keep.
The smell of crayons in a drawer. The way sunlight flickers through lace curtains. The comfort of buttered toast at the wrong time of day.

When we were small, joy was simple and abundant. We didn’t schedule it or earn it. We stumbled into it. Then life grew louder. We traded daydreams for deadlines, imagination for efficiency. But the truth is, the things that made us feel safe back then can still save us now.

A walk when the air smells like rain.
A song that knows every version of us.
A notebook filled with uneven handwriting.

These aren’t leftovers from childhood, they’re reminders. Proof that wonder is renewable. That softness doesn’t expire.

Sometimes, when the world feels heavy with expectation, I make a cup of cocoa in the middle of the day and let the sweetness remind me that joy was never meant to be rare. It’s not something we outgrow, it’s something we forget to notice.

So here’s to the small joys that survived our growing up.
To the tiny rebellions that keep our hearts tender.
To the quiet things that refuse to stop shining.

Growing up doesn’t mean closing the book on wonder. It means learning how to hold it again, with older hands, perhaps, but the same wide-eyed grace.

Autumn