In Exactly One Week

I’ll be 25 and just like with every onset of a birthday I become reflective. It’s tradition. I’ll say this need started on my ninth birthday. Okay. Before then because I can remember talking to my parents about cause and effect before I really knew how to spell those words.

In my gut I knew some things had more weight than others. So on the day before my 9th birthday I played in the mud and made mud pies. With all my knowledge in my 8 years I believed 9 year old’s didn’t do such baby things. I should savor and enjoy the way the warm mud felt between my fingers, because one day doing this would be a “bad thing”. Definitely didn’t help that the only scripture I can remember from those days is “Put away those childish things.”

So every year I put away something. Some years have been more successful than others. Some things I’ve had to reach back and get because I shouldn’t have done away with them in the first place. *Yes, as a parent I poo-poo mud, especially when it comes to laundry day, but I understand it’s the cheapest, most fun a child can have.*

This year I’m redefining a lot of beliefs. I’m letting go of grudges and forgiving people. I’m accepting my own faults and realizing some of them aren’t as bad. By doing that I’m picking and choosing who I want around me. I’m letting the teenager in me die. Dear Lord was she full of drama.

Most importantly I’m living more moments in the now. That translates into more moments of me reveling in the happy moments without worrying about the *possible* bad coming like a freight train. Seriously it’s tiring to put a shouldn’t and could happen on every moment in my life. I mean, if it’s all going to turn into shit in the next moment I might as well have THIS ONE while it’s not splattered over my face.

I guess at 24, on the brink of 25, I’m willing to put away my pessimism. It served me well when I needed it to survive to the next day sane. Now it makes me feel icky like playing mud.

What childish things have you put away? What things have you reached back to get?