Childhood is a funny thing.
It's one of the few experiences every human being shares.
We all had one.
Just like we all went to school.
We all ate cafeteria pizza that somehow tasted significantly better on Fridays.
And at some point, every one of us looked at an adult and thought:
"I can't wait to be grown up."
Which, in hindsight, feels a little like standing at the bottom of a mountain and yelling…
"I can't wait to pay taxes and compare insurance rates!"
When exactly do we become adults anyway?
Sixteen?
Eighteen?
Twenty-one?
The first car?
The first job?
The first gray hair that appears without your consent?
Nobody seems to know.
One day you're riding your bike.
The next you're excited because a package of air fryer accessories arrived.
Apparently that's adulthood.
My youngest daughter Abbey is almost eleven.
And she is in a tremendous hurry to become older.
She loves makeup.
Not casually.
Professionally.
The child owns enough makeup to open a small retail location.
She has brushes, palettes, lip glosses, and a vanity mirror with lights around it that looks more advanced than mission control at NASA.
Sometimes I'll walk past her room and find her sitting there applying makeup with the concentration of someone performing open-heart surgery.
Then she'll look up and ask:
"Do I look older?"
And every time I think the same thing…
No, sweetheart.
You look exactly eleven.
Which is perfect.
But I remember.
I remember being ten and wanting to be sixteen.
Being sixteen and wanting to be twenty-one.
Being twenty-one and believing thirty sounded ancient.
Which is adorable now that I make involuntary noises every time I stand up.
The truth is, children spend an incredible amount of time trying to become adults.
And adults spend an incredible amount of time trying to become younger.
Lately I've started to think we spend half our lives becoming adults.
And the other half discovering the child never actually left.
I used to think childhood was something you outgrew.
Like baby teeth.
Training wheels.
The inability to eat spicy food.
Turns out childhood is more like glitter.
You can move three times, change careers, raise children, survive heartbreak, and pay a mortgage.
And somehow...there it is.
Still attached to you.
Showing up in the criticism that hurts more than it should.
The approval you still seek.
The fears you can't quite explain.
The dreams you never completely gave up on.
The other day I found myself overwhelmed about life.
Too many responsibilities arriving at the same time.
And suddenly I felt him.
Little Mike.
The kid who wanted to get everything right.
The kid who worried more than he needed to.
The kid who thought mistakes were bigger than they really were.
For a moment it felt like he'd been asleep somewhere inside me for years.
Then he sat up.
Rubbed his eyes.
Looked around.
And quietly reintroduced himself.
"Hey," he seemed to say.
"Remember me?"
I did.
And I realized something.
The child never left.
He just got buried beneath meetings and responsibilities and grocery lists.
Still carrying old joys.
Old fears.
Old hopes.
Waiting patiently for us to notice.
Most of us spend years trying to outgrow that child.
Maybe the real work is something else.
Maybe it's finally learning to be kind to him.
Because after all these years...
the greatest gift of adulthood may be this…
We finally become the person that child needed all along.
.
"I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well."
- Psalm 139:14
Comments