Growing down

(Birthdays make me emotional, sue me.)

I smile whenever I look at old photos of myself. The sassiness and endless imagination and uncontrollable laughter. The way I tore into cake with my bare hands and wasn’t afraid to do anything.

For a long time, I worried I had lost all of the things that make me me. That “inner child” that pop psychology loves to go on about.

After a few years making all the wrong decisions and wandering around the world, it feels like I have finally started to revert back to that wonderful weirdo. 

The same person who wastes all of her camera space on every dog she sees. The sleepy girl who can’t stay awake during long travel days. The one who sings at the top of her lungs.

As I look at photos of me playing in the ocean, documenting what I did while traveling that day, and beaming with excitement at the airport, I can’t help but feel like I’m exactly where I was meant to be. That maybe the seemingly winding path of life was meant to lead me here, to what I can only describe as my dream job. 

It’s easy for me to get exhausted from all the traveling. But when I look back, I also see everything it has given me. It brought me home.

Travel has a funny way of tricking us into growing down. Everyone feels a bit like a child when they’re plopped into a foreign place. Sure, it can be uncomfortable when you don’t know how to ask where a bathroom is or when you get confused in a train station. 

When you’re lost, you find things you didn’t even realize you were missing. It opens the door for wonder, curiosity, and surprise. You break out of the routine of who you think you’re supposed to be and can become who you have always been. 

It starts in small waves until, suddenly, those socially constructed parts of you loosen their grip.

That voice that told you that sweets are the enemy of beauty is drowned out by your profound love of ice cream. And that desire to look “cool,” is overshadowed by your willingness and excitement to be a beginner again. And any thought of taking a cute bikini pic escapes you when you jump into the water and feel like a mermaid.

We often envy children for their naïveté and unfiltered joy, so why are we always so desperate to grow up? And once we’ve “grown up,” why do we hold on so tightly to staying this way?

Here’s to what is hopefully another year of growing down, in the ways that count at least. To letting go of the idea of perfection and embracing fun. To being brave and hopeful enough to believe in the good in the world. To 26.