lifestyle

The problem with maturity

It wasn’t all that long ago that I couldn’t wait to be an adult.  I wanted to leave my youth behind and get some respect from adults.  I wanted to be taken seriously, and I wanted to have the opportunities that adults had.  I didn’t have this freedom when I was young and it hurt. 

All of a sudden I am 34 years old.  I have been an adult for 14, maybe 16 years depending on your perspective and it suits me well.  I have formed an adult life taking the responsibilities along with the privileges of maturity, and I am glad.  Though, recently I have been wondering if I have left something valuable behind me, and I have wondered if it is too late to get it back. 

I have a 2 year old daughter.  She seems to live on another plane of existence that I no longer understand.  Her life is so vivid, her experiences so rich that she is constantly going wild with excitement.  She will sing and dance and laugh.  She will run and bounce and roll.  She will jump and squeeze and skip.  All because she enjoys it.  There is nothing mundane about her life.  It is all one big adventure, and she isn’t afraid to yell about it.

On the other hand, I am a respectable sort of man.  I enjoy my life, but I don’t go berserk about it in public.  I fit in with society and so I am quiet and reserved about my excitement.  I don’t allow myself to disturb the peace of my neighbourhood with wild hoots of delight.  And running around in circles just to make myself dizzy is truly a thing of the past.  I am wondering if this is actually reducing my experience of life.  I look at my daughter and her friends and I am jealous.  Imagine me, a mature secure man, being jealous of a group of maniac children.

On the whole I have a brilliant life.  I am happier now than I have ever been, as far as I can remember.  But I no longer give myself the freedom to express it in any way I choose.  As a result, jumping in puddles has significantly reduced in my life.  As has pointless giggling and loud yelling.  I no longer run unless I have a reason and I won’t roll on the ground or walk backwards unless I am playing with a child. 

You see, along with all of the freedom we gain as we become adults, we also put on a set of handcuffs that lock us into respectable and conservative behaviour.  For some of us, they are done up tighter than for others, but for all of us we are restricted by what a mature person would do in public.

Is it possible to change this?  Is it possible to forget our inhibitions again and be free.  I suspect that it is possible but how can we do it, and do we really want to do it?  This is my quandary.  Can I have the freedom of being an adult as well as the freedom of being a child?  I’ll have to work on this to see what is possible.

Thanks

Tom