Like a Child

When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me. 1 Corinthians 13:11

The other day at Winners whilst I was perusing the racks (of clothes), a slippery shirt dropped of the hanger. As I crouched down to grab it and as I looked up, I felt an old familiar feeling. Surrounded, hidden and smitten.

When I was a kid, I loved to hide in the clothes racks from other shoppers. When they would pass me by and I'd go unnoticed, I got this butterfly tingly feeling in my stomach and would think "yes, hehe! They didn't see me". I was an espionage of sorts or maybe just plain old sneaky and depending on the season, I may had just literally pulled the wool over their eyes. The round clothes racks were the best because they gave a full circle coverage.

The only full circle coverage I get these days are from my bra.

Funny though how one small thing can bring you back to a feeling, a state or place you've been or once dreamed you would be. Maybe it's sparked by a conversation with an old friend or an object from your childhood.

I like to buy candy I once enjoyed as a kid to make me feel small and innocent again. Coconut aroma anything brings me to past summers and certain songs to past love interests.

The most surprising is when you pass a stranger in the crowd and you catch a scent of perfume and it reminds you of someone you knew. I close my eyes and think of that person even if for only that moment or longer if I choose.

Maybe it's one single word that can trigger a whole reel of emotion. Sometimes it's blissful and other times it's evasive. Your day is carrying on as normal as a day in your life can be and something small, even unmentionable picks you up out of the present and tosses you backwards into a stream of guilt or embarrassment. It's about a conversation you shouldn't have had, the time you were in the wrong place at the wrong time and the worst, a misunderstanding you never could fix. You're tortured again by what you've done or haven't done. What you've said or haven't said. Who you were or who you weren't.

It's silly, really, but I love a good unexpected trip via time travel. I'd like to collect these moments but that's sort of the beauty of them. They come and go as they please.

I wish sometimes I could crawl on the cold tile floor under organized garments (hopefully long and almost to the floor like coats) and tuck my feet in as close to my body as I can. Hugging my knees tightly and slowing my breath I'd be once again be a child.

...Until of course my mom would then find me and it would just be...


game over.


!