COLUMN: To be a kid again
Recently I was with my friend drinking black coffee, rubbing our eyes from a long day’s shift in our wrinkled dress pants.
“I would love to be 16 again,” he said as two young girls walked by talking about high school things. “I did not care at that age.”
I sat there confused while I reminisced about how I was at 16.
Nerdy, but still athletic, pretty happy, but always cared. Always. I almost cared too much about what was going on. I planned everything out, probably to and past this very day.
I would marry my high school boyfriend, eventually move to Chicago or some other big city I never been to at that age and live my dream job of being an elementary teacher all by the age of 24.
Sure, it’s good to set goals. But not goals that are planned to a T nine years in advance.
And here I am: 20 years old, no boyfriend, still love Chicago and about six classes away from finishing my journalism major requirements.
No matter the reasoning for my endless agenda planning, obsessive studying and literally caring at age 16, I never want to go back there.
If I had to choose an age to be again, it would be when people asked “how old are you?”, and I could hold up one hand.
The days when you’re old enough to know better but too young to care.
As a kid, there was no rush for anything. Psh, I have 20 years until I need to start thinking about college, money, jobs, bills, insurance, marriage and babies. What’s on Nickelodeon?
My biggest goal in life wasn’t graduating college with a complete resume. The goal then was figuring out how I am going to be the one who wins Guts and holds that piece of aggro crag above my head like a damn champ.
But here I sit, 15 years since not caring, and four years since caring more than I should.
At what I call a happy medium, I care just enough about what’s actually important in life (OK, winning Guts would still rule) and I don’t care about whether or not I ace every class or am settled down by 25.
Life’s too short to not worry about the important things and definitely too short to obsess over the unimportant.
