Grown Up

The other day, I was talking with a coworker who had a child to pick up from some kind of event that the child was involved in. As I sat listening to the schedule of yet another adult in this world who has yet another child in yet another activity, I started to lament. 

The opportunities, activities, and achievements that this world offers you when you are young are incredible. Everywhere you turn, there's something to do, something to be part of, something to try, something to excel at, recognition for excellence, awards, honors, tournaments, you name it. 

As a child, I played multiple sports. As a student, I was involved in numerous activities. As a straight-A student, I excelled across every academic discipline. Soccer, basketball, softball, tennis, volleyball, swimming, student newspaper, Future Problem Solvers, drama club, marching band, jazz band, AP classes, passes to the library for sheer boredom, extracurricular projects (like the local monitoring weather station). 

As an adult, I have a job. And then, I go home where I have a dog. And if I want to do something with other folks, it requires a ton of planning, a few cancellations, reschedules, and something "adult-y." 

Some days, I miss running around a field and chasing a ball. 

Some folks are lucky - the things they learned in childhood shape their adulthood. They get to hold on in some meaningful way to the things that brought them joy (and accomplishment and recognition) as children. 

But for many of us, if not most of us, those things are in our past. And the things we accomplished as children just don't count for much in the adult world. 

I have a journalism degree, multiple school-related (state-wide) journalism awards, a couple of internships in the field, and when I tried to break into community journalism in my hometown after graduation, I was told that none of that mattered. I didn't have any "real" experience, no matter how decorated I was. 

Nobody in my adult life seems to care how many sports I played, how good I was at them, whether I can still ace a serve. It's no longer important. Maybe that's why I became a runner - it's a good way to stay active without requiring an entire structure for activity. 

It's gotten me nothing in life to have read above my grade level for my entire school career, to have taken AP Calculus, to have scored what I scored on the SAT. Not important. Nobody cares. (Except, of course, that being able to do these things does shape how I am able to engage with the world, but even that is a skill of limited value in the wrong places.) 

What I was thinking about as I listened to that coworker talk was how my young life was so full of things that felt so fulfilling and so wonderful and so accomplished - ask anyone, and they would have told you I was an accomplished young lady in the 90s) - and fast forward a couple of decades, and these are not longer accomplishments; they are simply child's play. 

And what I realized then, as I listened to my heart, is how deeply I miss both of those things - childhood and play.

So I lamented. 

Because I filled my life with what feels like a thousand good things, and I miss those things dearly. I really thought they'd be a bigger part of my grown up life. I really did. 

Then again, I guess they are, because they have shaped the good things I have now and given me the tools I need to hold onto those, so.... 

Anyone want a pick-up game of kickball in the street later?