I am not much of an artist in this life but I dabble with paint and markers on occasion.  A few months ago I felt inspired to draw this picture I’ll call becoming the child. I didn’t understand it at the time but it’s been sitting on my nightstand for a while.

I love kids and I have a lot of them. Well actually I have not given birth to any of them but I feel like I did, like they are a part of my permanent family.  One of the kids is a ten-year old girl who I’ve been mentoring for about a year.  After months of begging on her part I decided to take her to the water park. She’s only ten but I feel like I always have to barter with her on what we are going to do next. She really wanted Six Flags but I got a weak stomach and roller coasters are not my friend. So I got her to settle for the water park instead.

As soon as she got in my car she was on ten. She smiled, she screamed and talked really fast and I hadn’t even started up the car yet.  She was so excited that I got excited just by listening to her.  I suddenly remembered being ten.  It took me back to a place when I was her age and I was in the car on my way to Six Flags with my siblings and parents. I imagined how the night before she probably couldn’t sleep. And how she’d probably been up since dawn fully dressed just waiting for my car to pull up. And then I remembered the picture and decided I would really share in this day with her.  So I let go of my ‘hey I’m adult look at me, do as I say’ and I started to mirror her. We giggled, we talked about the rides we’d get on. We stopped at the gas station and bought cookies and chips to eat on the way (it’s only a 20 minute ride).  She made me stop so we could get matching gargles.  Of course they didn’t have any my little mermaids in my size but we sure did look for them. We rode rides, floated along the lazy river, we had a great time.  Every time I even thought about getting stern with her I’d visualize my little picture. This picture helped me to remember why  it was ok to become more like a child. In fact we all could learn how to be a little more loving, innocent, giving, creative, joyous, imaginative and carefree.  Being all those things allows you to slow down and to enjoy just being…no cares, no bills, no relationship, no pressure… just fun. Sometimes it’s hard to remember what it was like to be a kid but on that day I remembered. And I want to keep remembering…