March 22, 2008
Today I found myself sitting in a spa chair getting a pedicure. I glanced down at my toes and the color being applied to my nails was a shade of pink that can really only be found on barbie cars and princess hats in the shapes of cones with endless sparkly streamers waving down. Well, then again this nail color was very reminiscent of the nail color that was made by Bonne Bell and Tinkerbell as well. Every time the young man doing the pedicure would grab my foot, my toes would curl and I noticed myself scrunching my nose and giggling with a snort.
Clearly, not much has changed since my Bonne Bell years but anyhoo...
These pedicures go on for some time so I began flipping through a magazine. I read a little tidbit about how getting at least 8 hrs. of sleep every night helps to reduce our tendency to snap at friends, spouses, bosses, etc. I flipped a few more pages and began reading another snip-it about how 30- 45 minutes of vigorous physical activity everyday reduces your chances of obesity, heart disease, osteoporosis....blah, blah, blah, yada, yada, yada. I glanced down to see the progress of the fuschia barbie car shade appearing on all ten of my wigglies and thought to myself...why do we not live our lives like kids anymore? When did everything become so serious? As a child, I think there were very few nights where I did not get 8 hrs of sleep and I definitely never had to be told that I specifically needed 8 hrs. of shut eye so that I didn’t start a conflict on the playground. (Sheesh, maybe we were more grown up when we were kids). I also did not need the fear of horrific health issues instilled in me to know that I needed to run around at the park, jump on my trampoline and swim until my eyes burned so bad and my fingers were so pruned up that I personally removed myself from the pool. I continued to read on about how we don’t need to diet but rather we should eat a balanced diet, eat when we are actually hungry, and eat the things we want in moderation. Is this rocket science, people???? As a child, my family would go to the river to go skiing and swimming from early in the morning until the sun went down. If I was not on the boat, I was in the water. This is no exaggeration either. I remember somewhere around 530 or 6 being hit so hard with hunger, I didn’t know what had hit me. At this point, I would come out of the water and eat to rid myself of my hunger pains. I should also mention that at this age I had this very special plate that was divided in to sections so that you could really only put so much food on your plate and each section was the place for a different food. I definitely exercised, ate when I was hungry, had a balanced diet, and ate the things I wanted but in moderation. It was simple...so simple in fact, that I am almost certain that diet, exercise, sleep, and moods never crossed my mind. At what point in time did we start caring so much about these things? And further, if we started to care about them so much more at a later age, why is it so hard for people to get a hold on it? If all of us adults could just remember how we ran our lives as kids, I think we would all be healthier, happier, well rested, and less stressed out. Yes, many adults would argue that their lives become more complex, more busy, more financially driven, more on the road...well, more of everything sounding slightly negative. I agree, kind of. I do think we have more responsibilities but I would like to think that it is just us living our lives on a little bit of a larger scale. Or at least we are able to do that. As a kid, my friends and I would lock ourselves in our rooms for hours and stay up all night making up elaborate choreography to the sounds of many of our beloved early 90’s artists. We would do it over and over and over again until it was just right. What am I doing now? I dance upwards of 15 hrs. a week, I teach an artisitic sport and I choreograph routines! The greatest difference from then and now is that there is a little more riding on the end result, sometimes rejection is involved and now I make money doing it. So really, the only differences are the money and rejection part because as kids we treated every step as if we were doing it in front of a million people and everything was riding on that final performance. I really think that we can bridge the gaps between our childhood and adult life more than we think. Afterall, we are the same person...we are just living in different times. Alright, was that enough mental diarrhea for one night? Probably so, but I could talk about this for days.
What am I actually trying to say? I think I am trying to say that life is a lot more simple than we make it out to be. Let’s be kids.
Paint your toenails the color of a barbie car. When your mom takes you out to lunch, try not to agonize whether or not to get cheese and avocado on your sandwich fearing all of the fat you might be consuming...I mean geez, you are getting treated to lunch. Enjoy it. Take the word exercise out of your vocabulary, get off the treadmill at the gym and run around in circles and feel the spring air on your shoulders because you want to...not because you need to. When you feel like you have too much responsibility, remind yourself how you wanted to be in charge when you were a kid and how great it felt when you were given tasks and responsibilites to fulfill. And when you get that rejection from a job interview, audition, etc. that meant so much to you because it is all you ever wanted to do...keep doing it. Damn, life is good :)
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