What Does It Mean To ‘Grow Up’
When I think about what it means to grow up it depends on the context. Am I needing to make a big decision— financial, relational, or medical?
Or am I excited about living life to the fullest, squeezing out every moment of joy wherever I find it?
I am not even going to try to address the bigger issues like how we respond to crashing stock markets, difficult diagnoses, or death.
These things happen to both mature adults and young people.
If we haven’t matured before they happen, crises like these will move us along the spectrum of maturity.
But what gives us the flexibility to navigate these things?
Flexibility is one sign of youth. I want to remain flexible in my attitudes, opinions, and perspectives.
I don’t want to become stiff and unyielding when life around me demands change. I want to be like a small child doing flips on a trampoline.
In that sense, I never want to grow up.
So I have five suggestions about how NOT to grow up, regardless of the number of birthday candles on your cake.
Play in the dirt
Do you remember what it was like as a child to play in the dirt? Find some way to do that again…here are some suggestions and I bet you can think of more.
Take a picnic lunch to a playground and spend time on the swings, see-saw, or sandbox. You can disguise your purpose by taking a child, or you can do what some friends and I did once.
We took a woman on her 57th birthday to a playground to climb on the jungle gym and swing on the swings.
She had admitted to us that as an inner-city child in a parochial school she had never been to a playground and was too embarrassed to admit that.
Other ways to play in the dirt are to plant a garden either outside or in pots or to build sand castles at the beach.
Why should other kids have all the fun? We all have inner ‘kids’ that love to play. Let em!
Grow up and Dance
Most of us listen to music and it is fun at any age, but when was the last time you danced naked?
Really!
Next time you are in the shower turn on some dance music and let your inner dancer out to play.
And don’t laugh.
If you are a tub bather, get some tub toys. What did you play with when you were six years old? You can still do that.
There is no age limit on having fun in the tub.
Bubbles? Why not?!
Penny Candy
When I was a child I loved to go the penny candy store down the street with a nickel in my pocket.
I would spend hours (well, not literally) drooling over the Necco wafers, Tootsie Pops, and saltwater taffy.
I couldn’t buy much for a nickel and that was the whole point. I had to experience the mounting desire for any of dozens of options to choose the one or two that I wanted most.
As adults, if we want a piece of candy we are offered big bags of one brand, one style.
Yes, I know I can’t get a piece for a penny anymore, but there are candy stores where you can buy a single piece of fudge or another treat.
Spend a half hour just browsing them all, knowing you are going to buy one and only one piece.
Remember what it felt like as a kid? How does it feel now?
First Date
Do you remember what it felt like to go on a first date? Picking out something special to wear, stressing over your hairstyle, and writing it all down in your diary afterward?
Often when we become part of a couple or are distracted by kids, jobs or politics we lose the first-date jitters, which may be a good thing, but we also lose the mystery of wondering “Will this be the one?
What will he/she think of me?”
I want to suggest that it isn’t too late to re-create a first date night…even with a loved one.
Pick a night a few weeks in the future, plan it as if you want to really impress your date.
Buy flowers or another simple yet significant gift.
Go shopping for something that ‘shouts’…and journal what it is saying and what you want it to say to your date.
Be sure to cancel all obligations that evening and add to your preparations whatever you might have done when you were fifteen and going on a first date.
And where to go? How about a drive-in movie if there is one available, or an ice cream shop or maybe a diner, or how about going ‘parking?’
A Childhood Dinner with Friends
Think about the decade in which you were a child. For me, that would have been the 1950s when I was three to13 years old.
If you resonate with food from the fifties, you will remember green jello salad with cottage cheese, Spam, Wonder Bread, and c.anned spaghetti.
If you were a kid in the ’70’s what was typical of that era? Invite your friends to a potluck in which they bring food from the era of their youth.
Add some music from those years and let the conversation rip.
Have fun!
Give yourself an allowance
Did you get an allowance as a child? If so, how much was that?
With the cost of inflation figure out the amount that would be today then put exactly that amount in your pocket.
One piece of evidence that you haven’t grown up is a reluctance to save your early income so pocket this money and go shopping for a toy instead.
And let that toy be one that you can get with that amount of money. You might spend it on a diary with a lock and key.
Keep a private diary
When you can find a private time to sit and write, fill your diary with anything you want…draw pictures, write your fantasies, and pen a love note to someone who has no idea how you feel.
And then lock your diary up and hide it away.
When we give ourselves permission to ‘not grow up’ we can satisfy a part of ourselves that has been hushed for many years.
May these activities and others you will think of restore you to the fullness of life across your lifespan!!
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