A child on the 27th ride around the sun

I keep having the same dream, one where I am young, younger than I ever was; and I am starting to believe one thing only. My dream has never been to grow up, possibly never will be. My dream is to forever be the child I knew at 8, the child that grew to be 16, and has now become 27.

The child lives on and crosses time zones and experiences that nobody really should. The child lives on and meets lovers and haters, finds hiding places and extreme emotions. The child serves the greater good and suffers from indecent thoughts. I remain that child as I attempt to learn and walk on. I remain that child as I suddenly need to have answers for things I never questioned. It seems that walking in the shoes of a growing person becomes tricky the longer you walk.

See, kindness helps, love helps, people help and everything has a place in the greater story we tell ourselves and each other, but the only thing that never changes is the child that is constantly in awe of the life happening all around. We suddenly become capable of handling experiences bigger than us, smaller than us and beyond us. Something is in control but not us. Twenty-seven is the number of breaths I take when I get anxious for something stupid, it is the number of steps I will take as I walk down the aisle to my future husband, it is the number of people who still care about me despite my lack of social adeptness. Twenty-seven is just a number, but for some reason it is heavy; which makes me wonder how Seventy-two-year-olds do it.

There is a certain glory, a form of an ego boost to be able and cut past the bullshit. There is a freeing sensation beneath all the weight. There is a knowing that you hold on to as long as you hold on to the child within you. The child always knows something, the child takes life as it is but also with an underlying understanding of the comedy of it all, the unrealness of it. How funny is it really, to be considered old and young at the same time by the people around you. You go to a cousin’s 12th birthday party and you are so old. You visit your grandfather and suddenly you are a baby again. So I do not take it so seriously, hopefully never will.

I write to tell my story, and to describe the sometimes overwhelming feelings that come with living a good life; one that has allowed me to still walk on both my feet, breathe well and look alright. The longer I stay here, the funnier it gets; to be fair the less I believe any of it. The longer you open your eyes, your heart and your mind to the world the more you find pieces of yourself looking straight back at you. You pick some up and you leave some to be free elsewhere in the world. Life gets heavy, so do we if we don’t watch our weight, but the point is to always cater equally to our senses. Don’t eat too much, don’t think too much, don’t get caught up. Catching and releasing is a pleasure and one that I intend to keep.

I get wiser, but I also get sillier, and there is no basis to any of it. We work so hard to make our lives legendary, but we also get bowel movements that make us remember who we really are. The child runs free, the child pays no mind to the chaos. I choose to keep some of the lessons I have learned over the course of my life so far, but I also choose to drop a truckload of useless mind traps that I thought were lessons.

I cried when I entered this life as a baby, because who wouldn’t? so I still shed a couple of tears every birthday. A birthday is a reminder of the first arrival. It is an anniversary of being transformed from nonbeing into being, it is a reminder of life and the beauty of finding ourselves suddenly here. Birthdays also make us think about who we are, where we are and what we are doing.

And the best part forever and ever and always is the CAKE…until next year, let’s take this cake loving child in the body of a twenty-seven-year-old, on a ride around the sun.