911 Emergency — My Inner Child is Missing
My 10-year-old goddaughter told me exactly what I should do when lockdown ends. Her profoundness stopped me. When did I get so bogged down with life that I forgot to enjoy it?
I have taken a short break from work recently and I am totally enjoying this phase of not dealing with mess, difficult people, escalations and scrolling through my phone to read mails or respond to work related texts even during the weekend.
Last week my 10-year-old god-daughter called me and said — "Once the lockdown is over, I know what you should do — I will draw and you can sell my drawings, then I can play my guitar and we can sing together, you can also join my dance class and we can shake it all out and on the weekends we will watch movies."
When I asked her how this would help me, she gave me a look which translated to — Duh! "Won't it make you happy and you can spend time doing things you and I like?"
What profoundness coming from a 10-year-old. I laughed it off then but it made me think and reflect.
When did I get so bogged down with living life that I forgot to enjoy it?
As a child I used to enjoy colouring and hated the fact that my art teacher always asked us to paint the sky blue, mountains brownish and the trees green. I wanted to paint the sky purple, mountains white and trees pink.
We had a small kitchen garden and I used to love sitting under the Mango tree's shade during summer. Going to the beach and making sand castles and collecting sea-shells made me extremely happy. I loved soaking up in the rain. Back then, people used to call me happy, creative, fun loving and so full of energy.
Somewhere along the way, the weight of adulting pressed that child down. Bills. Responsibilities. Expectations. Performance reviews. Life happened, and the purple-sky painter got buried under it all.
But she is still in there. I am sure of it.
So I am putting out an APB — my inner child is missing. If you find her, please send her home. I miss her terribly.