It’s never too late to feel like a kid. Never.
I am a full grown highly accomplished woman. I Adult all the time. Everyday, in fact. I’m betting most of us do. And here’s the deal: for the most part I can’t really tell that I’m adulting. I’ve been doing it for so long that it goes undetected.
Rookie Moves Still Abound:
Well, except when I make a mistake. You know what I mean. I label these “rookie moves.” The kind of oops that catches you offguard. Those moments when we think to ourselves: “I know better.” Just a week or so ago, before I left the States for an extended stay in Milan, Italy, I booked an early tour for my second morning in Europe. And, yep — I slept right through it. A total rookie error… I know that the time change is tough for me and that I cannot predict my mornings. Yet, I still managed to F that up.
The last few years have been heavy on the Adulting front — for many of us. The Pandemic’s severity and required constraints forced many of us to grow up and act responsibly. We’ve all been under a great deal of stress, globally. Let’s not even talk about all the “spinoff” issues from this worldwide disease. We are all struggling to behave rationally when faced with inflation, supply chain problems, and a seemingly more divisive “us against them” mentality.
Adulting In Today’s World:
“The Pandemic’s severity and required constraints forced many of us to grow up and act responsibly”
Much like the story of the frog allowing itself to be cooked alive in a pot of water that keeps rising in temperature degree by degree, I stopped noticing the heaviness of what it means to Adult in today’s world. After all, I am a happy, well-adjusted, positive person. My glass is typically three-fourths full.
Last month I spent a long weekend with my oldest friend. We’ve known one another since first grade, though we didn’t become great friends until senior year of high school. As we all know, a lot can happen in a short period of time – especially at the age of 17.
My friend Nancy and I speak regularly, almost daily. We share in one another’s triumphs and failures. We vent to one another about life – our jobs, families, partners, friends. We are one another’s biggest cheerleaders. Unfortunately, we live over 700 miles from one another. Our frequent connection is fully supported via technology. Texts, phone calls, Facetimes… we use them all to stay connected.
Priority – A Shitty Word In The Plural:
But we hadn’t made seeing one another in person a priority. Sure, I can explain it away by listing all the real-life obligations that got in the way. But the reality is that we didn’t prioritize seeing one another. We clearly prioritized something else….whatever that was. Things change with time and recently we committed to prioritizing ourselves, twice a year. Each of us made the decision to visit the other each year. With two visits in 2022, I’d say we are off to a great start.
The Pandemic, forcing us to stay away from one another, brought into focus just how much we’d missed one another. Just how much we needed to re-order some of our individual priorities to make room for US.
With this recent pledge, I chose late August as my travel month. It is a lovely time to visit Western New York so I booked a long weekend. She made some great plans for us – wine tasting and meandering in Niagara-on-the-Lake, Canada and a visit to the Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz Museum and the National Comedy Center in Jamestown, New York.
The Making Of A Kid, Again:
“Let loose in the highly interactive National Comedy Center museum, my BFF and I literally scampered from exhibit to exhibit.”
Our wine-tasting day was lovely, casual, and very low key. (And, yes, there is much more to Ontario vineyards than icewine: We tried some outstanding Sauvs and Chards, and the Cab Franc wasn’t far behind.) Wine tasting doesn’t really lend itself to shenanigans — well, at least, if you limit yourself to just tasting versus guzzling. The second day of my trip, when we traveled south to the birthplace of Lucille Ball, was a whole other ball of wax.
Let loose in the highly interactive National Comedy Center museum, my BFF and I literally scampered from exhibit to exhibit. Pushing buttons. Pushing each other — not figuratively by the way — to be first or faster or funnier. Lost in the reverie of pure play, the day flew by. I can only imagine how we may have looked to the adults around us. Two middle-aged ladies (and I use that designation loosely) scurrying around, seemingly erratically, and probably cackling a tad too loud. Best. Day. Ever.
I know we can’t run around every day like it’s recess. Adulting is required. But what I do know is that every now and again, one of the healthiest things we can do for ourselves is to PLAY with reckless abandon.
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