When Do We Lose It?

"The authentic self is the soul made visible"~Sarah Ban Breathnach

 I was walking behind a little girl today who was on her way to her class. 
She was wearing fuzzy bunny ears.
Purple ones!
And they were on backwards!

Yet she was walking with the confidence of a woman adorned in her finest accessories.
And with a pep in her step that was just as lively.


She didn't worry about stares.
Or what others might be thinking.
She didn't care that it is no where near Easter or any day- of- recognition- for- a- bunny day.
She just was.


And she was so happy.

So happy that it made me happy too.
Not only for her but for me.

It made me happy that there are still some people in this world who get up in the morning and dress what they feel.

Who are not concerned about upholding an image.              

Granted it was a child.
We can accept that.
Because she is young, it is much easier to think that it was cute.
Not so much with an adult.


Imagine going to work and seeing a co-worker dressed like a rabbit?

Okay. See?  What are some of the thoughts that immediately went through your head!?

I admired and yearned to have what she had, within myself.
And I wondered when I had lost it.
When did I quit being me?


When do cruel words or actions of others happen enough, that we stop being on the outside what we are feeling on the inside?

When do we give up our fantasies because we might be laughed at?

When do we quit dreaming?
Imagining?
Creating?


When does reality become a confining word?

I have often talked about reality in a negative sense.
And sometimes it can be painful.

But for this little girl it was reality that made it possible for her to be.
The reality that she is young.
That she has no inhibitions.
And that the people in her life allow and maybe even encourage her to express herself as she chooses.


Isn't it that very same reality: age, inhibitions, and the people around us, that keep us from expressing who we are?

In many of us we no longer even remember something that was fun or creative.
Something that brought sheer joy to us.
Something that made us smile from the inside out.


So we admire it in others.
And we tell ourselves it just isn't who we are.
But part of us doesn't believe it.
Part of us knows that it is a lie.



And so we ask ourselves
When did we start dressing on the outside to hide what is on the inside?

And we feel a little empty.

When did we lose it?

"I like nonsense, it wakes up the brain cells.  Fantasy is a necessary ingredient in living, it's a way of looking at life through the wrong end of a telescope.  Which is what I do, and that enables you to laugh at life's realities."~Theodor Geisel, Dr. Seuss