little girl blues

From the car, engine running, I called my mom. In the middle of her workday and me in mine, she still answered with an endearing hello, already knowing tears were brimming in my eyes. Also on the call was the echoes of  her class full of second grade students yelling, laughing. It was recess. It sounded like an MGMT song. As I’m recalling my woes to her, as a daughter does, she cuts me off to tell a child to not jump down the slide. And I begin to cry. Hot tears, trailing mascara down my cheeks, dripping onto my shirt. My mother, caught between the wonder of being a child and the gruesomeness of growing old, told me to take a breath, in the same way she did when I sobbed as a little girl. In that moment, I didn’t want all my problems to disappear, I didn’t want to make it big, I didn’t want to be successful. All I wanted was to be a kid again. A little girl at recess. In the second grade, where the biggest problem is knowing how to add two-digit numbers together. I didn’t want to be in my car, with a chest full of lead and a head melting away with anxiousness. I hang up with her as I wipe my nostalgia away. For my recesses on the playground turned into 15 minute breaks, and I had already been out for 20. 

To be 23 is to hold every year prior with white knuckles, while also grasping at every year you have left to live. So meek. So thrilling. But in the state of the world, it isn’t a good time to be 23. Too much thinking can eat you alive, but not enough and you are disconnected with what spins around you. 

As a little girl, all I ever wanted to do was perform. I put on shows every holiday, made my family sit and watch while I shrieked a countless number of songs into my Hannah Montana Microphone. Losing a tooth on the trampoline, riding bikes in circles on the pavement. Choking on too much chlorine water jumping into the pool. My brother and I swinging simultaneously on the swing set. And one day we jumped off the swings, answering to a call for dinner, not knowing that was our last moment swinging from the creaky wood.

When you’re a child everything is so vibrant. Everything is full of excitement, of awe. Christmas morning. First day of school. Summer break. Vacations. Roller coasters. Chocolate ice cream cones. Sleepovers. Sneaking candy after the house is quiet and you triple checked everyone is asleep. Life is a game and it’s fun! 

And suddenly you outgrow your rhinestone skirt, and you outgrow your dreams. Kaleidoscope days receding into the murky, gray fog that is overthinking, or self consciousness, or anxiety. It is over before you know it. We all had nightmares as kids, but none as scary as what you grow up to live in. Oh, to worry about birthday party invites! The simplicity of only holding a few years to your name. What I would do to indulge in such silly worries again. 

Life now becomes stumbling between worrying and risk-taking. Not knowing what to do, or how to do it. Trying and failing. Trying again and failing once more. Impatient and defeated, others run the race you haven't even started yet. Being in limbo with who I was and who I want to become, a tired game. Coloring books turn into resumes and job applications. Nap time turns into all nighters. Trick-or-Treating turns into meetings. Crayons into keyboards. Puzzles into planners. Stickers into spreadsheets. Our childhood minimized to a 9-5.

I'm grown up Natalie and I’m still a child in the real world. Unsure, timid, and sensitive.  Crying in the corners so the adults won’t see, calling my mom when I need help. Will I ever feel of age?

But when you are 23 and having growing pains, you start to wonder “how can this be better?” And so we search and search for ourselves in other things that we encounter; people, online, relationships, experiences, money, books. But to search is to acknowledge that there is a lack, a void to fill, a space better not left empty, which insinuates that we are incomplete. There is no such thing as a search for ourselves, but instead, a returning. An arrival back to who we were before we grew up, before we stopped having playtime or juice boxes or recess.  

To return back to ourselves is to acknowledge the child inside of us. The five-year-old, the eight-year-old, the eleven-year-old. I think of little Natalie, all sass and smiles. She’s still in me, when she turns a nightlight on to go to sleep. When she is proud of something she created. When she strives to go above and beyond in anything she does. And my heart would break if the world turned its back on her the way it did me. Yet I am her. 

So when a tough day abounds, I’m making sure little natalie is getting her rest. When I feel flustered, or overwhelmed with the future years, I’ll take little natalie on a walk or maybe to the park. When she is stressed, we’ll color or draw, or dance in our room. And when little natalie needs help, I’ll remind her to not be afraid to ask for it. 

So how would you treat your child self? How would you talk to them? There is always time for play, there is always time for a nap or a grilled cheese sandwich, or playing dress up. Wandering too far from our childlike wonder leaves us lost and alone, crying out for help. And with the right amount of innocence, we’ll all be kids again.

until our next playdate

natalie <3