So she sat back and smiled, knowing everything would be okay.
The comfort she felt was unexplainable. Better than any kind of safety she had felt before, any kind of freedom, any kind of joy.
She had no direction of where her life was going, no one had explained to her the secrets of life.
No one had given her a million dollars, and no one had offered to free her from any of her responsibilities.
But she smiled.
And knew it was okay.
She didn’t have a doubt in her mind.
She had already cried many tears, and had many more to cry.
She had learned so much, yet had so much more to learn.
Her heart had been broken and yet, it would be broken again.
She had been loved, and would be loved. She had been hated, and would be hated.
But she smiled.
People had called her names.
She had failed. She had succeeded.
But she was okay.
I wish adults could remember the trust and the loyalty of two year olds..like the one this story is based upon. I wish adults could remember to have a blind faith about their fate like children do. Children have felt pain, have been through many ‘adult’ difficulties on a much smaller level (though still traumatizing to them) and yet can bare to sit in their parents arms, smile, and have a sense that everything is going to be okay.
True, children haven’t had to face taxes, but they’ve had to deal with the bully on the playground.
They most likely haven’t had to deal with death and the reality of what scum human beings really are, but they’ve had a friend stab them in the back.
They haven’t lost their job, but they’ve been picked last for a team. Or failed to make the school talent show.
They have all the opportunity in the world and the freedom to choose whoever they want to be, yet adults in their very narrow-eyed views forget childhood and limit their perspective.
Trees can be purple in elementary school. But by high school anyone with a ‘different’ perspective are singled out and treated like misfits.
The corporate ladder is only friendly to those who conform to the unstated rules of selfishness and immoral behavior.
But children must obey their parents. Even if their parents forget to respect authority at their jobs.
Why does life have to change when you get older. Change is good. If we always had a child’s perspective about things there would be a lot of people walking around wearing plaid pants and a pink polka-dotted shirt. But some things can stand to resist change.
I worked with a group of kids at a local Boys and Girls Club a couple of months ago. I met a girl named Honesty. How ironic.
We were probably there ten minutes when she proceeded to stand on the edge of this concrete block and fall back expecting me to catch her.
She didn’t know who I was, where I was from, or why I was there.
That trust in me is something I doubt I’ll ever forget. It was so strange. And I wish it weren’t. I wish people could trust like that more often. I wish the screw-ups of this world would make that possible for us.
I kid people about never growing up. And I never will. I have promised myself to never get to old to have a good time. To never get to old and mature to make a complete idiot of myself just for a laugh or two. To never be too old for trees to be purple.
To never be too old to forget that kids are a lot smarter than people give them credit for.
I remember sitting at a table with a group of my parents friends. And listening in on their conversation (I am a bit of a nosey person) I understood all of the conversation going on and was enjoying the topic. Then I remember my mom’s friend looking at me and in her kindergarten voice saying “Kaylyn, how are you liking school? I here you are in the third grade now. You’re getting to be such a big girl now.”
I felt so insulted.
I rolled my eyes and said good and blah blah blah.
I never want to be that kind of adult.
My personal choice is to not have children. That may change, that may not. But that does not mean that I will underestimate them. And that doesn’t mean that I hate them.
They bring so much inspiration to my life.
They are two things in one: my past and my future.
How amazing is that.
It’s time for adults to start learning from the child’s perspective of life. To start investing in them and letting them invest in us as well.
It’s time for adults to take a short time and remember how it feels to be free of unspoken ‘adult codes of conduct’ and color trees purple.
And to go toga-ing through town.
Be free.
Be a child.
And bee tea dubs.. I’ll always be just a big kid.
