ADULTHOOD 101; THE KID IN YOU

When I grow up, I want to have Money like my Dad.

When I grow up, I want to have a lot of cars.

When I grow up, I want to have a very big house.

When I grow up, I’ll have travelling buses and I will name each under my family members’ names. When I grow up, I want to be a pilot I’ll go to every country I want.

When I grow up, I want to be a Teacher.

When I grow up, I want to be a Doctor.

When I grow up, I just want to have many kids and love them.

When I grow up, I want to be like Mama.

When I grow up, I want to be like Dad.

When I grow up, I want to be just like you.

I’ve heard these answers from different kids, I don’t know exactly what inspires them but I am guessing it’s the environment they spend their time in, be it school or home or the street they grew up in. Here, that is not the case! it is how they answer the question or how they say what they want to be when they grow up that draws my attention, they don’t know how, they don’t know where and they barely know the actual impact of being what they want to be, they don’t know what it takes to become what they want to become but they say it with no hesitation and without even thinking twice and that’s the brilliance of being a kid.

A kid is limited but most of the time, physically on what to do, what time to do it and they are being showed how to do a lot of things but their mind is magical, they think of anything, their mind doesn’t question them when they say they want to be Moms, their mind doesn’t trick them and ask them “HOW IS THAT POSSIBLE?” they are just confident when they grow up they will become what they want to be and they say it with a big smile and how precious is that?

One of my youngest nephews has an impeccable energy, he would wake up in the morning and just start shouting names (this is annoying especially when you are on holiday and it’s 7am), singing his favourite songs sometimes dancing, some days I’ll put on songs and he will start dancing and it is just funny and very beautiful to watch, just watching him do what he does brings joy. My other nephew would wake up in the morning, brush his teeth pick up a ball and just play while shouting Messi with the ball, Messi with the with Ball YESS GOAAAALLLL, MESSSII MESSSSSI and he is just satisfied with just that while his Mom shouts at him for making noise early in the morning. My oldest nephew is obsessed with teaching he will pull up his imaginable group of pupils and start teaching, acting like he gave them homework the other day and they failed terribly, just funny to watch how he impersonates his own teachers.

I for one enjoys watching them do whatever they do without their minds questioning them but in someway I am scared of them growing up and loosing the beautiful oblivious mind where they don’t think of how they do things or why they do the things they do, where they are not scared that someone is watching them, where they don’t dance in a way people have portrayed as a perfect dance, where everything they are thinking or doing is not up to some standards.

Okay, hear me out ; I am not dismissing the importance of reasoning but just think if we could forget of the how and just do things that we enjoy to do if we can dare to dream without our minds questioning us, If we could dance for the sake of just dancing because we love to. If you wake up one morning and go outside play football with just anyone or just kick the ball without worrying what people will say because they have never seen you doing that before let’s just say they have never met the kid in you.

I believe if we still have that kid in us all we have to do is just channel this kid and bring them back to life, the kid that enjoyed dancing to any song, the kid that enjoyed kicking the ball, the kid that sung on top of their lungs whether it was beautiful or a disaster and they did not care, the kid that would dream without questioning themselves, the kid that believed they can do anything before growing up and get introduced to a community full of standards. I am not implying we should go out and act immature big NO, I am just saying let’s re-learn what we enjoy in life or no I will re-phrase that “let’s re-learn how to enjoy things in life”, let’s not limit ourselves to the things we love just because people are watching, feel like you want to enjoy that big ice cream that you almost forgot how it tastes like go buy it and have a taste of it, feeling like you want to sing on top of your lungs? so be it, feeling like you want to dance to your favourite song then get it on.

Life’s racing so fast we barely remember what we wanted to be when we were younger, we barely remember what we enjoyed the most when we were younger but once or twice or thrice in this busy stressing life let’s try to channel the kid in us, the one that has unlimited dreams maybe your decisions of what you wanted to be has changed gradually as you grew up but what do you want to be now? The best Dad? Be it, want to take a new course on photography you don’t think it will be useful but you feel like you want to do it then do it. Is there a place you want to go and you can go then go even alone just go even if people don’t usually enjoy going there, just go because you enjoy and nothing else matters, You have a business idea that inkling in your head write down with no limit take one initial step and see where it goes but all this should be persuaded with what you enjoy no matter what the societal standards are or what people are doing recently or what most people have been up to.

You use to like to draw when you were younger, you use to enjoy writing poems, you use to enjoy reading books and boom life happened you don’t have time for all of that. Hear me out please find time for the things you have deprived yourself for years, see if you still got it, draw the worst picture and laugh at yourself write a silly poem and ask yourself what the hell is it but at least do it because life’s racing and it’s not stopping not anytime soon it doesn’t have any plan of giving us a break, you played basketball, football, tennis in high school then find a spot go try and kick or shoot the ball again and laugh at it because at this moment you really suck and you use to be good at it or at least watch people play and enjoy.

Maybe at some point in life we outgrew the things we loved so much and became fond with totally new things, so be it enjoy those things as long as they are not toxic, let’s re-learn to have fun like how we use to when we were younger, let’s re-learn to think without restraint like when we were younger maybe life has shown it’s worst part but let’s not dim the kid in us the one that wants to enjoy things, the one that wants to laugh uncontrollably, the one that can run and hug a stranger, that stubborn hard-headed, extremely annoying but lovely kid, THE KID IN US.

Love, Evelyn