Adulting.

My friend posted this on Facebook today. 

While I was honored to be tagged in this post, I would definitely argue against how adulty I really am. 

There's currently a dirty laundry carpet on our bedroom floor, I have a weekend to-do list that stretches from here to high heaven (and doesn't even include laundry), and I'm fairly certain I have walking pneumonia again. 

In fact, if someone were to see the world through my eyes for a bit, they would certainly conclude that I suck at adulting. 

As summer approaches and I try to get my bearings, I was suddenly hit with the idea to move backwards. 

I took the kids to the library today and signed them up for the summer reading program - something I greatly loved as a child. And it made me think - who was I before events tarnished me? Long before I even thought about adulting, who was I? 

I think as memories fade, we tend to revisit our childhood in increasingly black and white recollections. We remember both  amazing times and traumatic times, but rarely embrace what was the "in between." Which is rather sad because that's where we discover the real meat of who we really are and what we wanted to become. 

I'm trying to remember more "in betweens." I have hope it will help me in my obligatory adulting of today. 

I rarely read anymore. I love to read. The summer reading program wasn't designed for kids like me - I totally killed it every year and it never crossed my mind that the program existed to promote literacy. Reading came so naturally to me, I simply couldn't imagine life without books. 

I want to read again. 

I was a total crybaby. My dad used to say I had oversized tear ducts, that I had an irreparable leak. But I cried because of others. I hated it when girls on the playground were excluded. It seared me to the core to see my grandmother's rapid health decline. I hated it when people were upset with me, and even more the fact I was capable of treating others poorly. 

I want my compassion back. 

I was never dry in the summertime. Sprinklers, slip n' slide, neighbor's pool, community pool, water parks, the beach, squirt guns and balloons....I basically lived in my swimsuit. 

I want to live at the pool with my kids this summer. 

I was creative for the pure joy of being creative. I wasn't paid for it, I wasn't attempting to save the world - I just created as I existed. 

I want to be creative for the sake of being happy. 

When I was little, it was a sweet life in a lot of ways. And by that I mean my sugar intake and TV time were rarely limited. But it really was an epic childhood a lot of times. There are things I can't replicate in adulthood. I live 3 hours from the beach now (dang it) and of course I can't blow off work and ministry to "create." 

But I do want to go back to revisit a little bit more of who I was - because it helps me to remember who I am. And it's incredibly healing to remember the good parts :)