What was it that made you happiest when you were a kid?
I ask this because there are times when I struggle to remember. There are times when I almost forget that there was a time, and albeit long ago, or not so long ago; there was a time when I was able to laugh or smile about the simplest things.
I love the idea of simple fascinations. I love the little details of things that might catch someone’s attention. It’s the simple things too. It’s the tiny details that we notice and yes, it’s these things that spark the idea machine and cause us to do things, like give a tiny gift that relates to this, as if to say, “Yeah, I noticed that too.”
I want this in a way that helps. I ask the question about what made you happiest when you were a kid because, at some point, we lose our way from childhood to adulthood and yes, something tripped us at our feet. Sure, there are times that we swore we weren’t going to make it. Such is the life of a grownup, right?
The discovery of loose change is an idea that came to me because as I was searching for a title for my next project, I put on a pair of jeans that I hadn’t worn in a while – I found a few dollars in my pocket. I think about the tiny findings I’d grab when I was a kid and yes, these were easier times. Of course they were. Hell, I couldn’t even spell the word mortgage let alone know what a mortgage is or pay it.
Little things can make a kid happy.
But what about us?
I offer this to you as humble as ever. And here’s why.
I can’t recreate my yesterday but I can change my footsteps so that I can go in a new direction.
I want to be pure. I want to be wholesome again.
I want to be inspired by something as simple as the white trails that are left behind from an airplane in the sky.
But guess what,
If you really want to make someone happy – notice them. Notice the small things. Notice the tiny things that no one else pays attention to. Do this and show them that even the smallest things are worth paying attention to. Send them something to let them know they matter and that yes, you are thinking about them (as in right now).
I say this as a person with history baggage and skeletons in the closet. Also, I say this as a person with lived experience. I say this as a person who overlooked the little moments that meant so much and allowed them to go to waste. I say this without regret yet I regretfully overlooked the countless values of so many tiny things.
But here’s the truth about tiny things and here’s the reason behind my testimony.
Tiny things add up. Little moments and small or incremental successes can and will accumulate. So does the fact that we notice them. So does the heartwarming gestures of tiny accumulations of acknowledged moments. This adds up. Believe me. This allows people to see that we love them. But more, this allows people to see that we also pay attention.
Love takes work. And yes – it does take a team to love one another. Love cannot be one-sided or lopsided. This takes attention. This takes listening and patience.
This takes endurance too and sometimes, love can take the life right out of us.
I swear it does.
Imagine something for me.
Imagine what it feels like to be noticed and loved. Imagine what it feels like to be thought of, even in the simplest detail. Imagine what it means to be taken notice of or that someone is so aware of you, that even the smallest things, like a tiny detail in our life, and then imagine how this feels when they recall this with you. Like the memory of a date perhaps or what time it was when you saw someone for the first time. What about remembering what they wore that day or night.
To be noticed –
This is the biggest compliment that anyone can give you.
And I don’t mean notice as in, oh yeah . . .
I mean this is the fullest regard. To be noticed; to be seen; to be taken in and to be paid attention to so deeply; or in my case, to have something that is otherwise and seemingly so minor yet we allowed this to be committed to memory; or imagine what it would be like to have someone hold a picture of you in their mind, as if to recall a sunset or the way the sunrise looked because you were there to see this with them.
I am no expert on love or happiness; however, I am here to allow this to become a special testament. I want this to help. I want this to allow us to refocus and redirect our thinking because yes, happiness is a combination of little, simple things. That’s all it is.
I could tell you that I want to be a kid again and at the same time, I would rather feel like a kid instead of trading places with youth.
I don’t want to go backwards. Besides, I want to keep what I know. I want to learn from my experience and yes, I want to do things, like run through a field or play a game like capture the flag like we did when we were young.
I’d love to play a game of hide-and-seek or go to a show or see a concert or to dance like we did when we were crazy and too young to care if morning was coming or not.
This right here – this is my truth.
And this right here – this is my heart –
Beating
I say this proudly yet I say this while pointing out my flaws because, once more, I want this to be a testimony of truth. I am offering this so that anyone who reads this or if this places itself in front of you somehow, or if the universe is kind enough to allow this to go further than my computer screen – I want this to wake up the world. I want this to open the mind of someone who is missing out on life because their world is passing them by.
Happiness is all around us yet we can miss this. We can easily overlook this.
We can lose people. We can misread things.
We can allow love to escape our grasp and we can miss out on the chance to live a long, happy life.
No, really. This is serious.
We can lose our sight because of a simple blindness that takes us away from our truest self.
There is no tomorrow – and there is no yesterday either –
at least not for the moment.
There is going to come a time when and where you wake up.
Try not to let this go too late.
There will be a time when you look back and wonder why you missed out on years of enjoying the world. And yes, while this might not be the easiest thing to acknowledge or this might be painful for some – I come to you with news from a little town in a place called Long Island, New York.
This does not have to be a death sentence. This doesn’t have to be terrible nor does this have to be so desperate or sad. No.
You can choose right now.
You can reorganize your life. You can choose to recreate youth at any given moment – and while it might be hard to get a group of people to play capture the flag at this age – at least we know that we still have the kid in us.
There is that possibility of personal burnout.
Then what?
I think about the desperateness of people, including myself. I think about the need and the desire and the yearning it takes to live and to love and to sing or to dance.
I think about how life saving this can be – to find that loose change or that dollar in your pocket from a pair of jeans that was in the closet. I think about this because otherwise, all else is lost or dark, or life is nothing else but sinking below the depths of emotional quicksand.
We can’t do anything about yesterday, I know this.
We can’t do anything about tomorrow either – at least not really.
But we can live right now. We can enjoy the moment.
We can make today our best day so that when tomorrow comes, we can look back and think, “That was really good.”
I cannot remove my yesterdays. I can’t wipe away the mistakes or remove what took place; however, I can reshape my life from this point onward.
I can realize that time is always ticking and so, whenever possible, I have to look for those little moments. I have to find a way to focus on those little things that I was telling you about.
I have to look for those tiny successes and find those brief moments of victory.
This way, I can add them up and allow them to accumulate. Otherwise, I’ll lose sight to my own blindness. I’ll go back and make the mistake of tallying my regrets or adding the accumulation of my mistakes – and then what?
More depression?
More resentments?
More of the same is what I would call it . . .
I want to notice more.
Maybe this is why it would be good to be a kid again – because if I was a kid again, it would be like seeing things for the first time. Like I said, I don’t want to lose my knowhow or be rid of my experience this time. No, I don’t want my youth to be wasted on the young. After all, it took me decades to understand what that saying means.
No, if I can recreate my youth then I’ll keep my experience.
It’s my experience that has shown me the error of my ways.
This is what’s taught me what to look for –
I know what I want.
I want that same excitement of when I saw things for the very first time –
like the time I saw you . . .
I am grown now. Some would call me a man. Some would regard me warmly and some would disregard me or not even have the thought to consider me at all. I know that and that’s okay.
I’m not looking or asking for a do-over.
I’m just looking for right now.
Just know that no matter where, what or how –
I love you.
Always –
But for now, the rest is up to me
Today~
The Written Addiction 