Monday, August 27, 2012

The Return of the Adrenaline Supergirl


As I was breezing through Facebook a few days ago I came across this picture:


After laughing at the intense look on the little girl's face and the quote, it struck a chord. A really big, two-handed, stretch-your-fingers-as-far-as-they-can-reach chord.

Because it made me realize this is exactly the feeling we are missing as we get older. THIS is the way we felt every single day as kids. We would never consider NOT feeling this way. We got an idea and we acted on it because we knew it would make us feel amazing.

My mother's aunt baby-sat us one weekend, and found us with every cushion from her patio furniture all over the yard and under the porch. The Olympics had nothing on us. Jumping from the deck, running and doing flips in the air, and perfecting twists and mid-air gyrations was extremely important so we could get high scores from the judges. Although I don't think she liked the idea of seven year old kids jumping off the side of her house...

There were no parents there, no one to buy us $200 uniforms, and more importantly, we were doing our own thing. Because, as my son said when he was eight, grown-ups ruin everything. He was talking about playing sports on the school team at that moment, but I knew what he meant. We take our lives and unfortunately the lives of our kids so seriously at such a young age that we take away their fun. We are controlling and feel the need to impart our wishes on our children. They feel too much stress far too early. They need time to be kids, to figure out their OWN ferocious games, and "get good" at something just because THEY love it--not because of something we want from them.  We were superheros that day at my aunt's house, and each of us was completely exhilarated and exhausted at the end of the day. I'm pretty sure we went to sleep happy.

Another day we took every scarf, pillow case, sheet and towel from the linen closet and made a house on the weeping willow tree in the back yard by hanging everything from the drooping branches with clothes pins. We came in for dinner starving and not realizing we had been outside for hours. It was like magic--we created our own world.

This post also made me realize that we let our fears stop us from doing so many things. "I would love to write a book but....  I would love to try out for a commercial but...  I would love to mountain bike or belly dance or play guitar..."  You get the idea.

Of course money is an issue. Time also. But there is still that part of me that wants to do Leap-a-Letics in front of my friend Michael's house in the winter because his sidewalk still freezes perfectly in January. Everything was a competition then, and it felt great. No one was worried that too much competition was going to ruin our self esteem. If we did a bad leap--we were given a bad score. Nobody cried.  It felt great to practice something and get better at it just because we wanted to do it. Not because school said to to do it or our parents. But because we LOVED to do it. 

I want to be excited and terrified again. I want to do cartwheels in my backyard just because it is sunny and learn how to do a backwards dive into my pool. And I want to give my son the space to create his own world too.  But for now I have to go...my people need me. :)


P.S. My short story ABSORBED is currently in the TOP 20 in Amazon.

6 comments:

  1. Excellent post. So true. My kids never had the kind of freedom I had as a kid. I had to put my kids in organized activities because that's where all the other kids were. There were no neighborhood kids available for porch jumping or fort building or saving the day. Sad. But the older one is managing to capture that spirit as a young adult, so maybe it's not too late... for any of us.

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  2. Maybe it is just happening at a different time now--I hope!
    I had a sad moment the other day when I realized--bonk!--he's 15!! That weird, magical childhood time is running out for him, and I still feel like I am still getting over mine.
    Boohoo...it goes so fast...

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  3. "Grown-ups ruin everything" - LOL! I know what he means, too. But I pride myself on being way too immature to qualify. ;-)

    Congrats on Absorbed! I just finished it the other night and wrote up a little review on Amazon. I just got my Kindle today (my very first e-reader!) and, once I figure it out, intend to get 100 Unfortunate Days on it, tout de suite!
    Some Dark Romantic

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  4. Thanks so much Mina! XO
    Read the review and I totally appreciate it.
    And I'm like you--when do I start to count as a grown-up?
    And 100 Days is being formatted now!! With the drawings!
    I'm excited.
    Oh wait! You have a Kindle now! Very exciting! You'll love it.
    Thanks again--:)

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  5. I love this post, Penelope, because it reminds me of my own childhood. I also made a wonderful house out of a tree with low boughs. My imagination was so very tactile then, so very real and just seeped out into everything I did. I guess, in that sense, I'm no longer child-like. It takes some effort now to dispel the hard edges of reality. But that's what writing's for! :)

    -aniko

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    Replies
    1. Thank GOODNESS for writing!
      And I know what you mean.
      We kind of lived on those blurry edges :)
      XO

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