Time Machine

Being 29, teetering on that landmark of 30, has pushed me into this childhood appreciation, or perhaps more LIFE appreciation. So I got this urge to build a fort. I shuffled my living room into an even bigger disarray, draped a sheet over the couch and the chair, and rigged the other side up with a broom handle. I was proud of myself. This monument to my childhood was turning out well. I threw in a blanket and some pillows. I lit some candles that I used to make s'mores. It seemed almost a waste to have a fort with no s'mores. A toothpick and a candle was a terrible substitute for a real fire and tree limb. But it worked. Kind of. Well, at least in the sense that it gave me a much needed break from the crushing realities of adulthood. My little fort: Time Machine to Innocence.

I came to this conclusion as I sat under a rigged up sheet in a pile of pillows with melted chocolate all over my fingers and face: Sometimes, you just need to build a fort. I will never be a carefree kid again, but I will certainly be a carefree adult. I will never be the innocence that embraced me as a child, but I will feel it again. I will never have to learn to ride a bike again, but I will learn to play the guitar. I will never wonder why the sky is blue or the grass is green, but I do wonder why we look away when someone is in pain. I will never be the heart surgeon I once dreamed, but I will still dream. New dreams, better dreams. Even though my yesterdays are lived and their significance is known, my tomorrow's mysteries have yet to be discovered.

Who knows? Maybe tomorrow I'll hopscotch.