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This article is an invitation for you to reconnect with your inner kid. Remember, every week is childhood week.
What if I told you adulting is a state of mind? Just think about it: a syndrome that makes us believe that the kid inside of us is gone forever. In some cases, people even experience anxiety caused by the transition of adolescence to adulthood. The influence of others’ success can be quite terrifying when we compare ourselves to them. “They already own a car at seventeen and I still watch Barbie movies.” If this is a depiction of who you are, take a breath, it’s alright! The truth is that entering the world of adulthood doesn’t mean that you need to give up watching Barbie movies or that you have to throw away your Hot Wheels car collection. It doesn’t mean that the kid that you once were shall be completely and utterly replaced with responsibilities and work. Adulting is just a part of growing old. It’s like crawling. As babies, we had to start to take small steps in order to walk. That doesn’t mean that we aren’t able to crawl anymore.
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I remember that, before going to college, I was terrified of it. I was suffocated by the idea of starting a new phase that implied enduring responsibilities I didn’t want to assume. At some point, I thought that high school would keep my youth and childhood encapsulated and that I was going to be forced to be another laborer of society. I remember that I celebrated Halloween with a high school friend once and noticed that there were only kids asking for candy at the doors while their parents, who wore casual clothes, waited for them. I’m sure that parents ate some of the candy that the kids collected, but they didn’t participate at all. I didn’t want to become a casual-dressed parent during Halloween because dressing up and trick-or-treating were, and still are, the best part of Halloween. Adulting not only appeared to be full of responsibilities, but also boring to some extent. Now that I’m a second-year college student, I’ve seen that my tight-knit community of young adults manages multiple responsibilities, but also separates time to have fun or do childlike things.
For instance, there was an egg hunt a couple months ago, where a bunch of twenty-year-olds literally crashed into each other for the eggs, which were bags filled with a random gift. It was refreshing to see how a simple activity, a simple gift, could brighten up the day of many stressed students. You see, even if you’re a business owner or a college student, there are childhood things that you are still able to enjoy. It could be the smell of the rain, creating arts and crafts items, or even dressing up as your favorite character. At the end of the day, never forget that you can still do small things that bring joy to your life. Don’t let the bill deadlines distract you or even convince you to think that you have lost your childhood forever. As Chili Davis said, “Growing old is mandatory, growing up is a choice.”
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So, turn off your phone, disconnect and, as embarrassing as it appears to be, go ahead and slide in the park’s slide one more time. Take a piece of chalk and draw on the pavement what the clouds seem to be, and make a house out of sheets in the living room, pretending it’s a castle. Go to the beach and search for seashells as if they were a pirate’s treasure. Bake cookies, and make a picnic in your backyard, or do anything your heart tells you to do! The stress of our daily life is overwhelming, but the optimism, creativity and joy of a child are always lying dormant somewhere, waiting to be awakened once again. A kid lives within us; you just need to be aware of it.