every now and then thoughts of being a kid invade me and take over until i give in. on several occasions today i had to force myself to climb back into my 23 years old body and remind myself that i'm suppose to be a grown up.
#1. this morning we ran out of milk. now this isn't a big problem for me, but it is for my two teenage brothers who eat two and sometimes three bowls of cereal for breakfast...or lunch, depending on the time of day they roll out of bed. so i, being the nice, loving sister i am, hop in my car and drive to the grocery for milk. i found myself mesmerized by the quarter machines at the front of the store. fake tatoos! magic eight balls! sticky hands! bouncy balls! stickers! i realized a little girl who was about eight was also admiring the oh-so-desirable-stuff crammed into little eggs. what about these cheap toys makes me want to stick in a quarter to get some silly prize? i know that it's not the surprise...because when i was little i remember hoping for a nice watch or a pretty ring and i'd end up with a crappy prize like an eye patch, or a necklace with a skull on it. still to this day, when i see those machines, salivating like pavlov's dogs, i feel the need to stand in front of them looking to see if there's anything worth my valuable quarter. i've been with friends even recently who have said something about it. it's like it embarasses them. they give me that what-are-you-doing? face. to which i shrug my shoulders and give them my oh-i-was-just-looking-face.
#2. today i was on the phone with brooke. i tend to pace when i'm on the house phone, so i was walking around in the kitchen. not really a lot of room to move about. walk to the sink, turn around, walk to the fridge, and repeat. i'm not sure why, but for some reason i apparently kept feeling the need to look inside the refrigerator every time i ended up in front of it. there wasn't a large selection. no one has been to the grocery lately, and since mom's been gone, we're pretty much down to just the essentials. tea, butter, cheese, condiments, salsa, cool whip, turkey...wait...cool whip? COOL WHIP! so i grabed a giant spoon and ate a huge spoonful. then i laughed at how silly i felt about doing it.
#3. in the middle of a conversation with my youngest brother, i referred to him as a street-rat. to my own ammusement, i then started singing the song from aladdin. riff raff, street rat. i don't buy that. if only they'd look closer, would they see a poor boy, no siree. they'd find out there's so much more to me.
#4. babysitting today probably added to this one, but i'm putting it anyway. hot dogs and macaronni and cheese. that's what i had for lunch, which definitely made me feel like i was 5.
what about growing up says that we have to leave things behind. who says that we have to abandon the things that make us happy, things that are familiar to us, things that have a part in making us who we've become? i can still enjoy looking at the funny prizes that come in a plastic egg. i can still love to eat cool whip by the spoonful. i can still appreciate a good disney movie i watched 9 million times growing up. i can still like to eat mac and cheese for lunch. who says i'm not allowed to because i'm 23? who's going to stop me?
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