Growing Pains

Everyone hates to grow up. I think that is a given fact. Other than children, I don’t know many people who think growing up to be a great thing. I know I find the whole experience as disappointing. When we are children, we dream of what it will be like to have to not take naps, eat whatever we want, and have no one telling us what to do. As an adult, I find myself fighting of the desire for a nap, using an app to track my calories, and calling my parents asking them “what should I do.” It got me wondering, what other things do we do to compensate for growing up?

                My husband and I counteract the horrors of getting older by going to Disneyland every summer—and we don’t even have kids yet. This is our time to be kids. In Disneyland, the power bill and the horrible job and the cat peeing on your bed (that actually happened to us while we were away at Disenyland) doesn’t exist. It is a place where even the 80 year old woman sitting with her grandchild is a kid.

                The other thing I do to make myself feel less adult-ish is writing. Occasionally, people ask me why I write at all. It was just today that I first grasped what the answer was: I write because it is a socially acceptable thing for an adult to do that is still much like playing make-believe. This realization came when I noticed my friends post on Facebook that described how his daughter was playing with her dolls and a model of her father new car—a VW Thing. (Yes they exist. Look it up) This got me thinking of my days of doll playing, and the plots and back stories I use to assign my dolls. These plots and back stories are like first drafts of the books I now right. Okay, maybe not all my books. I don’t recall pretending my Barbie’s were vampires. Still, you get my drift.

                After thinking through this topic, I asked a couple friends what they did to compensate for the terrors of growing up. I received a variety of responses. Some were as simple as: watch children movies such as Disney movies. Of course, I thought this a great idea!

                But there were a couple that stood out!

                One friend stated she runs around her house in a cape periodically. And trust me, if you knew this woman, this wouldn’t surprise you. She even said one day her roommate came home to find her working on her couch in a cape and a masquerade mask. Evidently the roommate didn’t miss a beat—this was such a normal sort of thing for her to do.

Now, most of us probably don’t run around our houses with capes and masks on (though I’m not judging if you do). Still, I think we all have our ways of staying sane in this crazy world. Another friend said he played D&D. (For those who don’t know what this is: it’s like Risk, Lord of the Rings and The Game of Life all mixed together). We talked about it for a while and came to the conclusion that his D&D is much like my writing—it is a socially acceptable (mostly) way of being a child again, playing make believe.

These brief moments of fantasy and silliness is needed in all our lives. We need time to be the hero, the princess, or even the side kick with two coconut shells.