"Childhood is not from birth to a certain age, and at a certain age the child is grown, and puts away childish things." ~ Edna St. Vincent Millay
I was a very imaginative child. In the midst of clapping out tales of Miss Susie and her steamboat, chasing neighbors around at dusk during Ghosts in the Graveyard, or making life-altering decisions using odds/evens or bubble gum in a dish, I was making barrettes talk, using my bed as an airplane, and gathering the giant leaves from the cigar tree in my grandparents' yard to build a "flying machine" that would take me, Elizabeth, and our cousins to destinations on the dusty maps we found in the garage. We blew bubbles, fought over the "good" bicycle in the shed, and pretended we were cool riding our scooters from one end of the driveway to the other with chocolate ice cream running down our arms.
I feel like I am regressing in quarantine. Anxiety can only take so much. I don't mean this in a negative way. I mean this more in that quarantine brings out my inner child. Somewhere along the way, for some of us sooner than others, we lose touch with the part of us that laughs freely, wears mismatched socks, and lays in the grass making pictures out of clouds. We stop playing, become jaded, and live to work, eat, and sleep. Maybe we meet friends for a drink or we watch a movie, but overall there is a lot of time staring at phones or televisions or indulgences that blur the edges, but it is not quite as freeing. We live for the few days a year we can take a vacation somewhere foreign and acceptable to "play", to take a break from the monotony of paying bills and working to afford a sanctuary.
Even as a child, I knew the other kids who wanted to rush to grow up were falling for a ruse I didn't necessarily want to hurry to be a part of. Aging is a privilege I am incredibly grateful for, but I wish we were able to do so in a way where we weren't losing possibly the best parts of ourselves-- innocence, idealism, possibility, and sheer joy.
Cut to quarantine.
When this first started back in March, I felt like I blew a fuse. I had curated a routine in my adult life, and suddenly things did not compute. It doesn't take much more than my few college classes in psychologist to let me know that I, like so many others I'd read about in The New Yorker or Vogue, was regressing to a simpler time.
It started with coloring. A box of 120 Crayola crayons and some pictures Shelley printed off for me, while the news imploded in the background. Gardening-- so many plants there is barely room to sit on the porch, but I still do, and I've discovered something peaceful in the life outside. Our walks to get outside and get me out of the house for the first time in literally two months became hikes-- adventures where we saw snakes and rabbits and weird bugs and weasels. I ordered a kiddie pool from Target when this first started and spent the entirety of Independence Day basking in it.
I've built puzzles and eaten s'mores. We have gone biking almost every day-- something that I didn't even learn to do until the Easter I was 10 and haven't done much of since, but it's become a way for us to work out and be outside. I find myself gravitating towards colorful clothes (so much tie dye, and the bright marigold pants Shelley surprised me with) and favorite books (Twilight, Wuthering Heights, Harry Potter...).
I've lost track of things like cute clothes or wearing makeup in light of a good Hanes t-shirt and time spent with people I care about-- albeit virtually more often than not. I've finally talked Shelley into re-watching "Seinfeld" with me, from the Season 1 pilot through the finale, and I've laughed so much. We play Mario Kart with friends or my sister on FaceTime.
These are good things. This is my way of playing the hand the world's been dealt. And yes, there have been some days where I've lain in bed for an hour after I woke staring at my phone. There have been tears and frustrations and aggravation-- at the state of the world, and particularly our country. There has been so much insomnia. There have been days I've disconnected and not talked to anyone because I just didn't have anything to say. But overall, this time is truly a gift. We should not "go back to normal" because we didn't really have a normal. We were getting by, but it wasn't great. I've grown even more introspective during this time, and I want to use the optimism and freedom to be a better version of me-- the version of me I love best, the one who is young and open, because those are good things.
Recently, I bought a skateboard. I've never been brave enough to try that before. I think when we get to a certain point in life, we stop trying new things because we don't like to be novice at anything. It's awkward. It's messy. It's uncomfortable. It's embarrassing.
Yesterday, after seeing me try to balance on it in the living room a few times, Shelley found a parking lot for me to practice. Because I move through life in a series of flailing arms and legs, I was helmeted and padded up, but I did it! Shelley watched me, cautious, supportive, anxious-- the kind of love you need to feel when you're trying something new. And I encourage you to try something new with this time, whatever it is that you've always wanted to try but never did. Your 10-year-old self would love it.
