Kick off Your Sunday Shoes

It's amazing how far I've come and how much my life has changed in the past year. This entry is one that I originally published a year ago tomorrow. It's one of my favorite things I've written. I happened to re-read it this morning, and it spoke to me as if it hadn't come from my own inner thoughts. (you should all really read through some of my archived entries from time to time. they're much heartier than recent ones.)


While stuck in the dizzying awfulness of searching for a full time job, I've been helping out a friend of my mother's who owns a daycare. She calls me off and on when she needs me, and my response is always eager. (it's funny how poverty makes you eager.) I worked at daycares throughout college, but now that I'm degreed and experienced, the environment is much more humbling. Social theory ain't real applicable when you're changing poopy diapers.

I was with four 1-year olds yesterday...watching as they scooted around the room in pursuit of various things to chew on...when Footloose came on the radio (I refuse to spend 8 hours at a time listening to Barney and BJ sing about sharing). Simultaneously, all four babies broke into freedance. Bottoms bounced, heads bobbed from side to side, arms waved in nonrythmic patterns, and it all made me smile bigger than I had done in quite some time. I couldn't help but imagine them all wearing 80's prom attire. Puffy sleeves. Powder blue tuxes. Mullets and Farrah Fawcett waves. I began to wonder what they'll look like in 17 years; who they'll become. Very briefly, I felt a faint hint of jealousy just then. The wonderful truth is that their futures are still blank canvases. They don't know worry or regret. They're still perfect. I wanted to join them in spirit; to dance inhibitiously with them and get drunk in the joy of innocence. I tried to concentrate on myself as an infant; a child; an adolescent; to connect with my former selves and borrow their ignorance. It didn't work, of course. None of us can go back to those places.

I remember a dream that I had 3 years ago. It's one of those dreams that will always stick with me. When the scene opened, I was walking into the courtyard of my preschool. It still looked the same. Or, at least, it looked the way I remember it in my head. I knew immediately that I was going to see myself as a 4-year old, and a wave of anxiety rushed over me. I wanted to leave, but I couldn't. Something was keeping me there. Across a playground, a group of children were playing duck-duck-goose. I saw her. Her hair was strawberry blonde then. The strands were softer and blew more easily in the breeze than they do now. Her face was round and happy....no sign of lines around the eyes that I now look into every day. Her limbs, not yet long and lanky, showed evidence of residual babyfat. She was more beautiful than any photograph has ever made her.

I stared at her intently while she played, as was suddenly overcome with emotion. Afraid she would hear me crying, I ran up a stairway and hid on an outside landing. I felt ashamed. I just knew that I had let her down and that she would never forgive me for it. What a dissapointment I must be to her....I was nothing of what she COULD have become. Choking on my tears, I wished had I had never come to see her. However, I couldn't escape her. She had followed me up the stairs and had been waiting patiently for me to compose myself. She put her right hand on mine, and I noticed the same freckle there that I have now. Looking into her eyes, I apologized silently. No words were exchanged, but I knew all at once that she forgave me. She loved me as I was. She was proud of me. And before she ran back to her game, she hugged me.

That dream was the best self-therapy I've ever experienced. Every time I think of it, it repairs a little piece of my soul. I guess that longing to be younger is inevitable, but childhood (or any other phase of our respective "youth") wouldn't offer any solution; even if we could access it. Regardless of our age, we always have a canvas that is awaiting completion of a masterpiece. Youth is all about perspective, anyway. We may lose our freshness and crave the days of not knowing, but the later we pick up a brush to complete a certain phase of life, the more experienced we are with the brush techniques. The inability to go back is a blessing, not a hinderance. Experiencing life more than once would be overwhelming, I think. It's hard enough to do it once. Feel free to celebrate like a toddler. Your younger self accepts you even if you dance like a whitey.