10/03/2026
PLEASE HEART REACT TO SUPPORT OUR FELLOW IT STUDENT🖤
A piece from CIT - Stephane Cruz
Title: Among The Children We Were
The gymnasium roared—
raised hands clapping, voices echoing against steel ceilings.
And somewhere in the middle of that noise,
I realized something quietly humbling:
Every person in this room
was once a child
who believed life would unfold exactly as planned.
When I was twelve, I mistook impatience for ambition.
I was so excited to become an adult.
I was already rushing toward womanhood.
But now that I'm twenty-one,
I find myself wishing
I could be that twelve-year-old kid again.
Standing among the crowd, surrounded by raised hands and hopeful noise — I began to see things more clearly.
Adulthood once shimmered in the distance
like something soft and golden.
Freedom looked weightless.
Success felt like it had a deadline.
Dreams were straight roads with clear signs.
Back then, I thought growing up was simply a matter of time.
What that little girl could not yet comprehend was the gravity stitched into freedom.
That sometimes dreams do not shatter—
they reroute.
That survival can speak louder than desire.
The plan was simple: doctor, engineer—
something magnificent, something certain.
There was no script for detours.
No rehearsal for choosing doors not out of passion, but because they were the only ones unlocked.
Failure was never romantic.
It was never poetic.
It was something to outrun.
Now, at twenty-one, life rests heavier than that little girl could have pronounced— let alone understand.
Two part-time jobs hum quietly behind unfinished assignments.
Sleep is borrowed.
Rest is negotiated.
Nights stretch long enough for doubts to echo.
There were seasons that did not bloom—
they burned.
Seasons that stripped impatience down to humility;
pride down to prayer,
control down to surrender.
There were days that felt less like becoming
and more like losing.
Like fire, struggle has always been misunderstood.
It does not only destroy.
It reveals what survives it.
Gold submits to heat before it shines.
Diamonds endure pressure before they are called precious.
Sometimes it feels like everything is falling apart—
but maybe
it is falling into place.
That was not the end of me.
It was the making of me.
Somewhere between exhaustion and endurance, I realized:
This was not destruction.
Some of it was teaching me how to feel without breaking.
Not everything that hurts is meant to end you. Some of it is shaping the voice you were too afraid to use.
Every closed door strengthened the knock.
Every setback sharpened resolve.
Every fall rehearsed the rise.
The little girl inside me did not know how heavy life would become.
But neither did she know the depth of resilience waiting to awaken.
And now, the woman who once mistook impatience for ambition turns back
and whispers to that small, determined heart:
“You were never lost.
Never late.
Never behind.”
