PERSONAL ESSAY
The Joy of Being No-Years-Old
Being childlike is not the same as “acting like a child.”
Not long ago, I was spending time with a good friend, just hanging out, chatting by the pool, enjoying a puff, both of us relaxing completely in each other’s company.
In the middle of a sentence, something across the yard caught my eye, and I leaped up to investigate whatever it was moving along the grass. When I returned, my friend said, “You were skipping like a little girl. Your walk completely changed. You were being no-years-old!”
In my lexicon, a good friend is someone you can be with without having that “walking on eggshells” feeling, someone who accepts who you are without judging you or comparing your behaviors to some secret book of rules that only they know.
The Book of Rules
When I was growing up, the one thing my mother repeatedly said to me continues to bounce around in my head almost daily:
“If you [fill in the blank] then people will think [fill in the blank].”
Nothing else she ever said or did to me had such a profound influence on me and my kid brother. She was telling us that everyone — friends, family, strangers — would…
