What is youth?

Lately I have asked myself this question as I embark on the last few weeks of being 41 before my 42nd trip around the sun. All of our lives we are given these time tables to govern ourselves by. Everything melted down into this structure, this box we try to fit into. The question is who decided what should fill it, who decided it should be a box, who sat down with the intentions of making us all cookie cutter paper dolls chasing the same dream ? I can tell you it wasn’t God. As a woman especially, we are plagued with ideas about beauty, and youth. We are told that we need to have children before we are 30 years old, we need to have a husband before we are 25 years old, we have to stay in shape and look our best at all times. We have been laden with these ideas about what youth, success, and beauty look like all of our lives, and without our awareness we fall victim to the makers of the box. Last night, I was getting dressed and stumbled across a t-shirt I used to love when I was “younger”. It is super soft and loose, and has the words young, wild, and free plastered on the front. After putting it on, I turned to the mirror and actually laughed when I read it. I thought, I’m not young, wild, or free -anymore! I felt so silly wearing it, as if when I walked outside, someone would know that shirt wasn’t meant for me and yell “take that thing off”!

I actually felt embarrassed standing alone in front of my own mirror. It really struck me, like hard! It made me start to think and then think again about how I define myself, or have let the box maker’s define me. When we think of youth, we associate it with fun and freedom, energy, and vitality, aspirations, and big dreams, but I still have all of those things and then some, so what’s the problem? I’m sure when I bought this shirt, I didn’t ask myself if the words applied, somehow I just knew that it was talking to me. So how did I get to a place where those words would make me pause? I think it’s because we are trained to put away our toys after we play with them. Do you remember being a kid and told to pick up your things after you were done playing? Do you remember having a toy that you really liked and then one day it was put onto a shelf because you were told you were “too big” for it now? Do you remember looking up to that shelf, staring at that toy and longing to play with it again, and having to accept that you couldn’t? We don’t realize it, but that is what the parameters of the box of life teaches us. It tells us that after so many years, we should be past having certain desires, dreams, and toys. So we actually have been programmed to think of “growing up” and adulting as giving up the things that we love. We associate getting older with wanting different things, but what are those different things? What’s the opposite of fun, what’s the opposite of vitality and dreaming big? I’m not sure about you, but I don’t want it. As of late an old flame has popped back into my life and since seeing him, I have felt so young, wild, and free. I have felt like that young 20 year old woman who still has the world to discover. I have wanted to stay up and watch the sun rise, I have wanted to make out all night long, and dish about it to my bestie the next day. I literally feel like something inside of me has been awakened. The question is when and why did I let it fall asleep? I know it wasn’t done intentionally ,but I had put my toys away. I made myself believe that now as a 41 year old woman and mother, I need to have more parameters, take less risks, and be more stable. To some degree I believe that. My child needs a stable home and home life, I don’t need to fly by the seat of my pants, because I have responsibilities, but I can still live in balance. After having my moment in the mirror, It made me start to look for other clothes that I hadn’t worn in years. It’s funny because we all do that, we put “old” clothes away that we used to love and pull them out and look at them, sometimes we even show people. Why don’t we just throw them out if we are done with them? I believe it is because to some level we use them to time travel. Those put away things are like little museums that we buy tickets to on rainy days. They are just like that toy on the shelf, we love them, but feel we are too “big” for them now. We feel as if the time for them has passed, but I’m allowing myself the chance to step out of my box and play with all of my toys. I’m going to cut my box to pieces and build a fort with unicorns around it. I am going to color my life with a big bold purple crayon with glitter sprinkles. I’m going to stay young, wild, and free, open to love, and all the possibilities of whatever I may dream, and I encourage you to do the same. We only get one ride, so let’s ride it to the wheels fall off .

Love & light