Feels Good To Be Young!

As a 2009 college graduate who is fairly new to the full-time work force I sometimes think to myself, "Why did I ever want to graduate? If I could just spend one day as a kid again it would be so awesome!" and, surprisingly, about two weeks ago my wish came true.

It was the first weekend of my husband's Spring Break and we decided to travel to his parents' house and spend some time with the family. We originally had said that during the day he would study and I would try to get a few hours of work done so we could completely relax in the evening and catch up with everyone. The only part of the plan we actually followed through on was the relaxing part. We woke up on Saturday morning to find the sun shining and the temperature rising to the highest degree in had been in months. So, instead of pulling out the books and lap top, we put on some tennis shoes and told his parents we were going for a walk.

First, we walked downtown past the little shops and restaurants, watching families walk with their kids as the kids ran giggling excited for the spring weather. Instead of turning around at the end of Main Street to head back like we usually do, we took a turn to the left and headed to the park. As we closed in on the playset, we knew what our first matter of business was for the day- the swing set. Together we swung back in forth seeing who could swing the highest and remembering how it felt to think we could "fly." With our hearts racing, we lept off the swing as it reached its highest point in the air. Next, we made our way to the little league field. In my excitement, I failed to remember the recent rainfall the town had experienced and I sprinted towards home plate quickly finding myself sinking into thick mud and completely soiling my shoes, but I didn't care! I then walked into the dugout and sat down on the miniature sized bench, remembering when I used to scream, "Pitcher, pitcher belly itcher!" I swear, that cheer won our team games. We decided to start our journey back to the house, when large round stones lining the road caught our attention. The stones were topped with small metal hooks of which we tried to come up with a story for their purpose- but could only decide they were meant to be used for us to have a balancing contest. We took turns stepping up onto the stone and then placing one foot onto the hook, then as we balanced our entire weight on the hook, we would count out loud to see who could win. We spent LOTS OF TIME doing this. When one person would top the other person's time, the contest would continue with the other person attempting to outdue the time. I am proud to say I won the contest with a time of eleven seconds. The sun began to go down and the warmth left with it, so we decided to finish the game, but I'm sure the contest will resume when we return to my husband's home town! When we were nearly back to his parents' house, we couldn't resist to play on the slides at his childhood elementary school located behind his parents' backyard. Unfortunately, I forgot that I'm quite a bit larger than I was at the age of 10 and going down bumpy slides can be a bit painful if you aren't prepared for it! After a final round on the monkey bars, we ended our adventure with a race to the back porch.

Funny enough, when we entered the house breathing hard after screaming as we reached the back porch, no one at the house said a word. No one asked where we had been, why we were playing on the play equipment, or why we sprinted to the back porch. We didn't have to explain ourselves at all. It was like they knew that for that day, we just had to be kids. We spent the rest of our evening feeling refreshed, feeling like the things that had seemed so very important before weren't really as big a deal as we had thought. Best of all, we recognized that for the first time we had the chance to get to know eachother as a child. It wasn't a story told by his parents or brothers or pictures that allowed me to see who my husband was as a kid. I learned that I have loved him all of his and my life. I also learned that we are both very much still kids at heart and I think that, probably, most everyone is. I'm not going to tell you to plan out a weekend of childhood reminisching or to make a three hour trip to your home town to go stand on the pitcher's mound, but I am going to say that when the day comes for you to be a kid, let it happen. Like most of your childhood memories, it will be a day you won't forget.