As You Grow Older You Bring All Of Your Youthful Selves Along

A few days ago I was out shopping with my grandchildren and I got a jolt. As I was checking out the cashier asked for my email. As I gave it to her I could feel my ten year old granddaughter looking at me. She asked me what I had said my email was and when I told her she said that it sounded stupid. Needless to say I was taken aback. My email is a bit whimsical as I would like to think I am. She said it sounded like something a teenager would use. Now I am a sixty year old woman so I guess maybe to her using a whimsical email is a silly thing. Though I thought she knew me better than that. I tried to explain to her that even though I was older my younger selves still resided within me. The girl who climbed trees, who made tents over the clothesline, and who pretended that barn swallows were dive bombers trying to get her. The girl that played all kinds of tag games, who made leaf beds to lie on in the fall, and who could lie in the grass looking for four leaf clovers forever. How many children and grandchildren look upon the adults in their lives and not realize that those adults are made up of many younger selves? Does our age require we lose those bits of ourselves we carry from previous years? Am I too old to love dragons and fantasy and just about any whimsical thing in life? Am I too old to let music give me wings with which to fly? Too old to want to explore the dark woods or splash in waters along a beach? Am I too old to be silly once in awhile? Maybe in the eyes of youth I may seem too old for this but what they don't realize is that the youth they are living right now doesn't end, it just moves forward with them as more layers of living are added. So when you look at your aging parent remember that the person who danced and partied and maybe raised hell is still there right along side of the person who sits and watches television quietly or seems to be too tired for life sometimes. When you look upon your aged grandparent remember that right along side of the person who you think couldn't possibly understand how life is for you is a youngster who probably thought the same thing once. Without the layers of ourselves coming along for the ride aging would just be a physical hardship impossible to handle. Some days we need to remind ourselves of what we could and did do just to get through a day and old memories of joy and laughter sometimes help spark the urge to create new memories of joy and laughter. I will not give up my inner child for without it I am less than whole.