tippy-toein'

Sometimes you have to take off your big girl panties, put your Barbie pull-ups back on and explore the world around as if the trees are speaking, as if the chirps and the coos and the buzzes are a chorus cheering you on and as if the wind is carrying you off to a new backyard kingdom. Life is fun as and adult, but life is even more fun as an adult with childlike wonder. Do you remember all the dreaming you did before someone taught you not to? Not the 'American Dream' kind of dreaming but the I'm-gonna-crawl-in-this-wardrobe-and-find-Narnia type of dreaming. The kind that doesn't allow reality to limit it.

Why did we ever stop that?

Is it because as a child we are allowed the grace and hope of "who we wanna be when we grow up" but once we've grown up we are expected to either have fulfilled those hopes or to have welcomed dissatisfaction? Well that's dumb.

Today I got off work and drove to the bed and breakfast at which I'm staying for the next two nights. I scarfed down my salad (I know I'm proud of me, too) eager to replace the steel toes with nikes and explore the east Texas pine forest. I walked around the grassy areas, some of which were mowed and some not; I didn't mind it either way. There was a ginormous tree that had fallen over so naturally I climbed on top and walked down the length. Stopping in the middle, I began to bounce up and down as the oscillations grew and grew. I began to giggle down deep in my belly and thought to myself, "I'm enjoying this as if I were a little kid!" 

And then it dawned on me that this concept might be the secret to life. And if not that, then at least a pretty dang good idea!

You know when there was the company-wide 'take your child to work' day? And you felt mega important as you walked into your daddy's office while his massive hand swallowed your own. You were able to peer just over the desk if you got on your very tippy toes. You'd play with the books and the gadgets and look at the pictures of yourself as a baby. You'd make it down the hall and discover that the break room might actually be the most glorious place you've ever seen. You thought that the corporate world was the most exciting place on the planet. Wouldn't it be neat if you still saw it that way? Wouldn't it be neat if you still treated it as if it were a place that holds endless opportunity, shows you things that make a difference, allows you to be both a learner and a teacher, etc. 

I know; I know. "Avery that's just naive and unrealistic. You don't know what my cubicle is like. I just can't find joy inside these gray walls... Blah blah emails blah retirement promotion blah blah blah."

Or maybe you just need a perspective shift. And it's a good thing you have a choice in that.

Jesus, thank You for my job. Thank You for my opportunity to learn and to be a part of an organization to which I have the ability to contribute. Thank You for loving me and loving my coworkers. Thank You that my walls are gray, but that my personality doesn't have to be. Thank you for the freedom to find community at work. Thank you that adult life is a blast!