The Prayer
When I was a little girl, I said a prayer. I asked earnestly to never forget what it feels like to be a kid. I don’t know exactly what my thought process was at the time. (I was quite young.) But there was something I saw in the grown-ups around me that I KNEW I didn’t want for myself. I remember knowing that it was VERY important to me. It is interesting to me that I was thinking that way at such an early age, but I’ve always remembered that one prayer.
For the most part I believe the prayer was granted, because I seem to suck at “adulting”. No really. I identify so much easier and more quickly with children than I ever have with adults. I am baffled at things other people accept as normal, like why at a certain age we stop doing cartwheels, or swinging, or screaming out in joy in front of our friends. What does it mean to “act grown-up”? I’ll tell you. In my experience, acting like an adult means to dampen your emotions (all of them), to concern yourself with what EVERYBODY else thinks, to jump into the rat race (chase the almighty dollar, or whatever), to get “realistic” about your dreams (throw away happiness for practicality), and to do whatever it takes to get all the other adults to believe that you have YOUR shit together. Oh, and most of all, STOP PLAYING! (You know, cuz playing is only for children.)
Even though my prayer was answered, I tried to fall in line with my young adult counterparts (well, sort of). After goofing off in college (I got really good at snow skiing… during class time), I eventually took my place in a grown-up world, doing my best to pretend I knew ANYTHING about ANYTHING. It never worked. Thank GOD I finally gave that up!! But it took YEARS of unhealthy relationships, putting myself in little tiny boxes, and losing my ability to perform a really awesome cartwheel.
Seriously though (without being too serious), WHY DO WE STOP PLAYING??? WHY does growing up cause us to quit spinning in our dresses, and laughing with our mouths wide open? I say FUCK THAT! I have always laughed with my mouth open. I have been laughed AT because of it, but so what? That means I made someone else laugh. (HA HA!! Gotcha!!) It makes me sad to think about the things I loved as a kid that I just stopped doing. I loved gymnastics (my backbend then, oh my… I want it back) , building blueprints for houses in the fallen leaves, riding my bike everywhere, pretending SO many things, piecing together scraps of old fabric to make “clothes”, writing poetry…
Do you play? Do you remember how and what you used to play before you “grew up”? Do you still do that? If not, why? Is it something you can begin again? How?
I’ve learned that to live the best version of ourselves it is entirely imperative that we play. It actually takes years off of your life, relieves stress, helps you FEEL younger, boosts creativity, and makes you better at solving problems. Being playful also makes you more attractive, but only to other creative, younger feeling, stress-free, problem-solvers. So there’s that.
I am grateful to God, The Universe, Higher Power… for the gift of still feeling like (and mostly acting like) a child to this day. My prayer is that for a day, or even a moment, every “grown-up” could remember what it was like. Perhaps if we all did that, we would have less rules for one another. Maybe we wouldn’t judge so quickly and harshly. We might even have more fun. (GASP!)
All I wanna do is spin really fast until I fall down dizzy, bury my feet in the sand, hunt for “treasure” in the woods, come up with funny names for things that already have names, hang from monkey bars, sit in the dirt and play with rocks, communicate with the butterflies and lizards, swing on the swings, bake cookies and eat them, stare at the clouds, practice my cartwheel, and laugh and laugh and laugh…
Who wants to join me?
