Edited by Tasmiyah Randeree
I miss being a kid. It was so much easier. Life just moved so much slower. It seemed like my biggest worry in elementary school was whether my mom was going to make something I didn’t like for dinner that night. Ah, the luxuries of youth. Now that I’m finishing up university, I feel like I’m stuck in this in-between zone: I’m definitely not a kid anymore, but I don’t know if I quite count as an adult yet either. I guess maybe that’s just the reality of being in your twenties. As much as we joke about the struggles of “adulting”, comparing stories about our latest laundry mishaps or our grocery shopping successes, I think this weird limbo phase is a difficult space to be in. It’s a time in our lives when we’re still trying to figure out what we truly want for our futures. We’re expected to have our futures mapped out, and start getting all our boxes checked off, but amid these bigger existential questions, we sometimes let the day to day slip by us without stopping to check in and ask ourselves if we’re enjoying where we’re at in the current moment. We’re racing to figure out the capital L life questions, but forget that while we’re searching for the answers, life’s still happening all around us.
The end of 2018 was rough for me. If I’m being honest, a good half of it was pretty rough. When I finally made it to winter break, I made a point of reflecting on just why things had been so challenging for me. On the surface of it, I attributed my difficulties to the higher stress levels and the graduation anxiety that was overcoming me. I had been preoccupied with the future, trying to anticipate my next steps, and my remaining mental energy was devoted to school and my extracurriculars. But when I got to the root of why all of that had been so exhausting, I realized it was because I wasn’t leaving anytime for myself to do things that really excite me, the things I did when I was a kid.
When I think back on my childhood, I remember the hours I spent in the pool, racing my friends from one end to the other. I remember the hot sun on my back, the carpool High School Musical sing-alongs and our moms rolling their eyes. I remember giggling and blushing around my swim coach. But mostly I remember the feeling of weightlessness I always felt when I was in that pool. I didn’t think when I swam. There was no need to think. I just swam. All that mattered was getting to the wall. There was no past or future to be preoccupied with. The water took everything away, and all that was left was me at that moment. I wasn’t able to keep swimming, and as I got older, that feeling of weightlessness and freedom got further and further from my grasp.
Another childhood passion of mine was reading. My family would take weekend trips to the library and my sister and I would tumble out the doors with ten or more books each. And once we’d gotten through our own stack, we’d trade. I’d spend hours curled up with a book, lost within the pages, living in someone else’s world. I’d surface only if I came to a word I didn’t know, either asking my mom to define it or making a list in my notebook to look it up later. My love of words hasn’t left me, but obligations and commitments seemed to fill my time that used to be left for escaping into a good book. As life got the better of me, I never prioritized these things I used to love. I always told myself that I’d get back to them once I had more time. But I don’t think that time is necessarily going to come. So, this year, I decided to set an intentional goal with myself to create that time I need to get back in touch with my childhood interests. I have started to swim every Tuesday, and my friends and I have started a book club together. I already feel better. I’ve given myself time to lose myself in what I’m doing and given myself permission to shut off my brain and block out the noise of my thoughts. I’ve already noticed a difference both in my stress levels and the way I’m thinking about my future. I feel calmer, more relaxed, and happier at the end of the day.
Kids can spend hours engrossed in their hobbies. I think we often envy them for their carefree nature, the way they can lose themselves in what they’re doing. But who’s to say we can’t get back there? I think we can. Maybe it’s easier for kids to abandon themselves fully into what’s in front of them. Or maybe they just have the time to do so. Maybe we just need to make an effort to create a space where we can allow ourselves time to just be, to not worry about the future or where we’re headed. Instead of overloading ourselves with life-long to-do lists, or guilting and shaming ourselves for pausing to have fun, maybe we need to encourage each other to embrace our forgotten passions, and to get in touch with our inner kid. Maybe, just maybe, these little pockets of our childhood can give us that weightless feeling again.