Lost & Found: Reconnect with Your Inner Child & Unlock Triumph as an Adult
I can taste the confidence I ate in high school. Top of my class, acne-free, skillful dancer, powerful stepper, free writer, leader, fashionista, the friends (as they’ve always) were friending…I mean life was at the tippy top of it’s game. And, in my adolescence, of course, you could convince me otherwise because, ya know, teenage drama, but I indeed was living my life like it was golden — and was.
Somewhere between here and there, long before COVID, I lost my fervor for these flavors. My buds stopped budding for the best of my youth because something told me those palettes couldn’t be carried into adulthood.
Something lied.
Three things will cut dinner short and ensure you can’t pay the tab if you’re not intentional about who you are and what you love — money, marriage and motherhood.
There is nothing wrong with any of the three, unless you let them eat you. And in the space between a lack of boundaries and desire, search, hunt, for perfection, isn’t that what happens — you’re being eaten and forgetting that you have the ability to bite back.
I’ve written about my hopeless romantic aura enough for y’all to know if you know that I dive in heart first. I’ve literally written the books on love and told y’all again and again to love yourself first. The Words I Didn’t Listen, Too, though, tells a story of a woman who pushes for success in every area of her life except herself. What a tragedy.
The transition from adolescence to adulthood comes down to one word: responsibility. That one word, for me, breaks down into those three things: money, marriage and motherhood. When responsibility comes knocking, if you’re a responsible person, you answer. But if you’re also a people pleaser, lack of boundaries keeper, or insecure creature, the door swings open and never shuts with enough time to catch a breath. And you don’t realize that you’re cold, coughing and at risk of harm until something startles you.
I’m not here to say God is some scary ghost that pops up to freak you out, but every now and then he’ll shake things up to startle you back to yourself to get you in line with His purpose for your life.
&, so He’s done and so I’ve listened.
I’m dedicating myself to finding the joy of my youth, to regain the confidence of my soul, and to embrace the peace of life and its freedoms.
True responsibility is balancing the things I have to do with the things I need to do.
What does that mean for me?
It means planning for the things I need to do - I’m getting back on my DIY maintenance more consistently - these nails bout to be pressed, and lashes bout to be lashed. Clothes will be worn. Accessories accessed. Playing with Hot Wheels after the boys are sleep. Dancing - LOTS of dancing. Writing for y’all and writing for me. Poetry read and recited. Seeing new things, eating new things. Being by.my.self sometimes. Finding new music just to listen to 90s and 00’s jams only. Doing hair - but not too much. So many candles. No one can out massage me. Leading, disrupting, questioning, elevating. In MY element.
What would it mean for you? To daily adventure back to your childhood bedroom and remember the things that made your heart glad. To reach back into the treasure chest of memories that soothe your aging soul and relive them with more vigor and maturity. To fall in love with the moments that you breezed past previously and force them to return with power and courage and persistence and calm.
It’s time to come home and eat.
You who are young, be happy while you are young,
and let your heart give you joy in the days of your youth.
Follow the ways of your heart
and whatever your eyes see…
…banish anxiety from your heart
and cast off the troubles of your body…
Remember your Creator
in the days of your youth,
before the days of trouble come…
Ecclesiastes 11:9-10;12:1
