As a kid, I could never understand why people who got their ears pierced left the same earrings in day in and day out. Why would you do that when you had the opportunity to wear every different kind of earring you owned? I couldn’t understand why people who could drive stayed where they were, and why you wouldn’t skip everywhere if you were happy. It didn’t make sense to me at all. It never even occurred to me that when you got your own house you wouldn’t always have sleepovers with your friends.
I looked at myself in the mirror the other day and realised I hadn’t changed my earrings in forever. My last few car rides had all been functional, and when I was happy, I didn’t skip anymore. I couldn’t even remember my last sleepover. At some point, I don’t know when, I stopped doing the things that were exciting to me. I became somehow adultier. I made priorities that didn’t allow me to delight in finding new earrings, or wearing funny odd socks. My drivers license became a means of travel from A to B, and I found people looked oddly upon my public displays of happiness. I let that stop me. And I don’t like it.
As I write this, I think of more and more things that excited me as a kid that I couldn’t wait to be a part of. And the list stacks up further of the things that I haven’t done. They’re not monumental things. They’re not the things you tell your grandkids from a rocking chair on the porch, but I think they’re still important. When I was in grade 6, I went to school every day in a different headband to see how long it would take before I had to repeat one. In primary school I collected drink coasters from every place we visited. In grade 10 I organised a group of friends to go to dinner with me at a restaurant that had looked empty last time I’d been past. I spent an entire afternoon wrapping my sister’s room in Christmas paper while she was on holidays. They’re little things, but even now they make me happy.
So I’m making an effort now. I’m writing down a physical list of all the things that I found exciting as a child. And I’m going to start completing it. Some I’m sure are destined to remain in the “that’s not going to happen pile,” like my dream founded from early viewings of Shrek to shout “I object” at a wedding, but others a more easily accomplished. Tomorrow, I’m changing my earrings.
Small things amuse small minds they say. Maybe that’s why adults never seem as easily delighted as children. And if I can recreate just one of those adventures, perhaps I can recapture that joy that everyone seems to be missing a little of these days. Maybe I can be the kind of person that my 8-year-old self would find exciting. I hope so.
Morgaine Auton 