Saturday, August 05, 2006

Why can't we all just stay kids???

Why can't we all just stay kids??? Why does the world have to change? Why does life have to get harder and harder to live? Why are children the only ones able to see the world as nothing but an adventure? Why are children the only ones that truly believe that God can do everything and anything? Why do we have to become so jaded and marred by the world and what it expects and wants along our growing up that we lose all sense of wonder and belief? Why do people have to move on in life? Why do we have to grow up?

I was never happier than when I was a child and my only goal in life was to dream about what I could be and have fun. I wish that I could go back to that time when I dreamed of being an astronaut and had no reason to believe it couldn't happen. I wish that I could go back to the freedom of being a child and getting to run about in the woods and play with not a care in the world. I wish that I could go back to being a child where love is what our parents give us and what we feel for our siblings, our kittens, our bicycles, our backyards, our crayons, our dolls, our hamsters, our wildflowers, our dogs, our play-time, and our general enjoyment of life, even though we don't actually understand what life is.

2 comments:

Shrig said...

I think you've asked too many hard questions at once ;) So I will try my best to answer the first one.

We can't stay kids because not only because biology forces us to grow up, but we can't stay kids because we start to experience life, as we know it today. Hard, demanding, hurtful (insert your adjective here). But while being a kid is great, I wouldn't go back to being one.

Do I have as many worries as I did as a child? Probably not. I'm sure we all take a step back and realize, "God, my problems were so simple back then." Well, yeah. Now that we do look back on them they seem to be quite trivial. But they certanitly weren't at the time. And while I am a firm believer in remaining "young at heart", I don't believe that being a kid is any eaiser then being an adult. Being an adult isn't eaisy either. Quite frankly, I'm finding my twenties to be far more confusing then my teen years.

Perhaps your point is, why do we loose our sense of youth? We do become jaded, pesimistic, and creatures of hardship. But in being an adult we gain independence, we learn things that unless your some kind of child prodigy, you would never understand as a kid. We can also do such things as make love to a partner and have children of our own. Are there benefits to being a kid? Sure there are. But I think the benefits as an adult are far greater.

And for the record, I never stopped coloring, loosing myself in my imagionation, playing with my kitten or enjoying the wildflowers. Admittly, I don't play "stuffed toy town" with my little brother anymore, but he can still make me laugh just as hard as he did when we were both kids. And I think you make an excellent point that we perhaps take our lives a bit too seriously. We don't have that kind of childish fun anymore. So if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go back to my coloring.

<3 u.

Elizabeth said...

I've determined that NOTHING is going to stop me from being as much of a kid as I want...even if that means buying frog and toad and acting out their stories. :) Don't give up your dreams JoyAnna...just try to be patient with them. I love you!!!!