The Kid in You
SEAN DIETRICH
AUG 19


Do this. Close your eyes. Take a deep breath. And remember what it was like to be a kid. Go ahead. I’ll wait.

Dive deep into your brain and locate your mental elementary-school yearbook. Flip through the pages. Find that cute black-and-white photo of yourself with that gap-toothed smile and enormous ears.

Now hold that yearbook picture in your mind.

Look how precious you are. Look how happy.

Remember how great it was? Remember how uncomplicated it was, being a kid? Remember how your only occupation in this world—your highest ambition, your ultimate purpose, was to seek out and locate refined white sugar?

Remember sitting in Mrs. Welch’s Sunday school class as she played an upright piano and everyone sang “He’s Got the Whole World in His Hands” as Charlie Waters picked his nose so aggressively he was literally touching his own brain matter? Remember how you actually believed the lyrics you were singing?

Recall how nothing bothered you. Even big stuff, serious stuff, it barely affected you. Sure, you had pain sometimes. But mostly, you didn’t worry. Even critical injuries didn’t bother you.

You could fall off your bike, lose a tooth, or break your arm until a jagged piece of your humerus was poking through the skin. You’d cry. Then get back on your bike and start pedaling home to Mama.

She’d hold you. Kiss your head. And somehow, deep in your heart, you weren’t that worried. Because you knew it was all going to be okay.

If you’re having a hard time remembering how immune to fear you were, try remembering chicken pox. Chicken pox is a life threatening illness. But you never knew that back then.
Whenever you or your friends got chicken pox, you never thought “death.” Chicken pox simply meant you got to stay home from school and watch reruns of “I Love Lucy.”

But then you grew up. Then you got wise. You started worrying. Real Life steps in and shatters illusions of safety and security. Like a hammer on plate glass.

Suddenly, life is not about sugar and fun. Life is about security. About having enough. About what you’re going to eat. What you’re going to wear. Where you’re going live.

Year after year, as you age, you abandon the idea that everything will turn out all right. You’re becoming an informed adult now, kiddo. And the more you know, the more you wish you didn’t. Welcome to reality.

But I want you to bring back the childhood yearbook picture. That photo of yourself. The grainy black-and-white image.

Now, I want you to focus on sending love to this child. Lots of love. Imagine you have a proverbial cannon of love. Blast that cannon of love at this child. Then, take this child into your arms. Hold him or her tightly. Squeeze them. Don’t let them go.

Remind this baby in your arms that there is nothing to be afraid of. Not pain, not suffering, not injury, not rejection, not failure. Not even death. Especially not death, in fact.

Because no matter how grown up you are, the song lyrics are still true.

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Because no matter how grown up you are, the song lyrics are still true.

Excellent!

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Find that cute black-and-white photo of yourself with that gap-toothed smile and enormous ears.

When I was being created, the Good Lord asked, "Should we make him brainy or brawny?" Having a short attention span, I replied, "huh?" At that point in time, He instructed the angels to give me the "enhanced audio perception enhancement gear" - which some of you simply refer to as Big Ears. Gifts from God should never be demeaned. The gap-toothed smile, on the other hand..............

My wife is going through our kids' childhood papers: drawings, "cards" to parents, etc. At least as far as our daughter is concerned, she was a "love cop". Sent tons of self-made "cards" of love to us and her big brothers. I like to think that ebullient, joyful love is still in there, even though she's a mom herself now with her own worries.