Sometimes when I'm driving I'll see a child walking on the sidewalk or waiting at the bus stop or two teenagers with wildly colored hair holding hands or young parents pushing a child in a stroller and my heart just fills overwhelmingly with hope, love and sadness. They are so beautiful, these fellow humans, much younger than I, so beautiful and I want to stop the car and tell them this, tell them I'm glad they exist, that we all exist.
There's an old quote stating youth is wasted on the young, and it's complete bullshit. It's not wasted. Let them have every moment of discovery, every first blush of love, every stumble and every triumph. Let them too have their tears, their fears and worries, their agonizing self-doubt. If they fully understood they'd never get those moments back, they'd be paralyzed, unable to live their own experiences. This is what happens far too often to us as adults. All that saccharine bullshit about keeping the child alive inside is really trying to say: don't forget to be alive and OPEN. An awareness of your own mortality need not destroy the ability to live fully; it should enhance it. We need not be desperate to recapture something gone; we have its memory inside us. We get to carry that with us for hopefully all our mortal years and we have the ability to add more, new experiences.
I can't pull my car over and tell these children and teenagers whose names I do not know that I love them. But I can dream of such a world, and keep trying to build it.
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