Go Play

Not sure about you, but I grew up quite young.

I mean I got to play and I didn’t have bills to pay but I had to worry about “grown business” way before I ever should have.

Now I’m almost 30, burnt out, and struggling to figure out how to make it through each day.

I’m not into things that people typically label “bad habits”.

I go to work, have a pet, have friends and some hobbies but a lot of things have lost their luster.

Lots of us are like this.

My therapist pointed out to me that I need to play.

I need to reclaim the parts of my childhood that were stolen from me.

It feels uncomfortable and unnatural.

I’m supposed to be the “responsible” one, the one with my shit together. That’s who I had to be.

And we know that I don’t have to do that anymore.

But what do I do instead?

Ever so slowly,  I’m picking things up that I had dropped in the name of “adulthood”.

I watch cartoons, eat gummy worms, blow bubbles for my cat, take naps. started collecting rocks again (ok, I buy crystals but same thing).

I’ve laid in fields of buttercups and played with butterflies and watched ants run along my hand.

I am safe here. I am safe now, even if I wasn’t always safe before. I am my caretaker now.

And part of my responsibility is letting myself play, whatever that looks like.

This is a short one today because I’m tired of living in the adult world today and I’m currently hearing kids scream from having a good time in the pool, what I would rather be doing instead of chores and spreadsheets I need to handle.

So I’m going to take my own advice and go play for a little bit.

The work will still be there, the world will keep on turning. But will your soul keep on singing if you don’t go out and play? Will you light up a room when you walk in if you don’t play? Will you get to the end of your life happy with how responsible you were or will you wish that you did the silly things, the parts of you that got lost along the way?

I’m only as young as I allow myself to be. I’m going to let myself play.