Like a Child...

Tonight the thought at the top of my brain is: Being an adult is really lonely.

It is. As I've written elsewhere in this blog, this phase of life--after college, starting a family and/or launching into the career world--there are a lot of adjustments to be made.

I find that the biggest adjustment I have to make is the isolation and the pressure to be responsible. To pick up when I feel like letting the house stay in chaos. To struggle to be rational and stay constantly in 'perspective.'

I remember when I was a kid... If I felt sad, I was sad. If I felt happy, I was happy. If I felt bratty, I was a brat. I wasn't overly concerned about social graces, and looking back at some of the things I said and did, and some of the interactions I had, I'm mortified.

But tonight rather than being mortified at younger me, I'm jealous of her.

Thinking back over my life, I can almost trace the deadening of allowing myself to feel what I was feeling and really be vulnerable. I had the innocence of any small child. I started withholding a bit of myself in Jr. High and forming a shell of protection after I had that movie-magic moment of kids surrounding me on the playground driving pieces of who I was straight into the ground.

In High School, I was impulsive and guarded all at once like most teenagers.

In college... Well, college is like a rebirth of childhood in many ways. When I said that then, I meant it because I'd go out and sled and flop on my belly in the snow on Scott field, and I'd skip arm in arm with a friend, and I'd allow myself to sometimes be rambunctious and out of control.

But tonight I mean that the feeling of feelings erupted again--and I allowed myself to be vulnerable and sometimes that was part of being out of control.

And then I stopped. I think that was the moment that the magic of childhood ended... That pixie-like ability to play ring-around-the rosie around the rock on the schoolyard, and frolic like a faerie in a public garden died... That's when I 'grew up.'

But I remember that Jesus tells us that we can't come into the kingdom unless we are like children.

Could this be part of what he means? Could he mean that we are supposed to feel what we feel.. to be vulnerable? To be sad when we're sad, happy when we're happy, and brats when we feel bratty? To call our friends at 2 a.m. and say, "I need you," and collapse into a ball of tears at their feet? To call Him at 2 a.m. and say, "I need you," and collapse into a ball of tears at His feet?

Tonight. I think it does.

Lord, teach me to be like a child. Reawaken the magic. Embolden the feelings and the openess, and be near me when I cry, "I need you."