what's my age again?

"If growing up means it would be beneath my dignity to climb a tree, I'll never grow up, never grow up, never grow up! Not me!" -J.M. Barrie, Peter Pan
"Too many people grow up.  That's the trouble with the world, too many people grow up." - Walt Disney
"Life is either a daring adventure or nothing." - Helen Keller
"Change of any sort requires courage." - Mary Anne Radmacher

lately I've been thinking a lot about life from a child's perspective.  the way they see it, the way they live it.  and honestly, I think that they get things much better than we do.  they understand so much more about it.  or maybe it's the fact that they don't get it at all.  they just live.  they don't let goals and assumptions and prejudices get in the way.  they love, they laugh, they imagine.  they live in a magical world where cars are really spaceships, mom and dad are superheroes, love simply means the biggest hug you can muster, and all of life is an adventure.  perhaps this is a glorified version of childhood, but nonetheless, it is a beautiful thing.  sure, we all have to marry and have children of our own and a career and get old.  but that doesn't mean we have to grow up.  I, for one, would love to spend the rest of my life enjoying each day as it comes, seeing the hero in everyone I know, fostering my imagination, giving really, really big hugs.  I like to dance in my living room and talk to the dinosaur-shaped chicken nuggets I throw in the oven when I'm hungry; I like to show my excitement and talk animatedly with everyone I come in contact with; I like to see life as one big story where I get to be the heroine and Jesus is my hero.  I wish I could say I felt this way all the time, but who can ever say that?  sometimes I feel like scowling at my family and walking through each day in my mundane routine, just because it is safe and I know what to expect.  but those days are no fun.  and it's time to spice things up a bit.  "Change of any sort requires courage" (Mary Anne Rudmacher).  God grant me the courage to live every day like a kid would.