No B.S Friday: What I’m thinking about this Easter
So Easter has come around quickly and bopped us on the nose. Almost time to start making plans for Christmas.
But the themes for this week are resurrection, rebirth and renewal.
I was thinking about this the other day. I was walking around my neighbourhood, and I could hear some kids playing on a trampoline over the fence. There might have been water-balloons or something. I couldn’t see.
Anyway, I could hear them laughing. But it was a particular kind of laughing. It was wild and untamed. It was laced with thrill. It almost came off as unhinged.
But it was a laugh I could remember. Like you had just landed a water balloon right in your buddy’s face, but now there was one heading straight at you.
And I thought, I haven’t laughed like that in a long, long time.
That’s why I’m bringing everyone into to the office on Sunday for a waterballoon skirmish.
No, but it did make me think, whatever happened to that boy I used to be? Whatever happened to that kid who threw himself into things full tilt until he was screaming with delight or terror or both?
What happened to him?
Somewhere along the way he became domesticated.
And it’s not just about how our energies change as we get older. I know there’s no way I could spend two hours straight on a trampoline anymore. So that experience isn’t really available to me.
But there isn’t any activity or thing that makes me laugh in such a wild and uninhibited way anymore.
The best you can get out of me, is a sort of knowing world-weary chuckle. Like, “Ha ha, yes, that is an amusing way to remember that the world is flaming turd on God’s doorstep.”
And it got me thinking, that we often tend to think about rebirth in the personal journey as a sort of evolution. The most common metaphor is a caterpillar
turning into a butterfly. You go in ugly and broken and poor, and you emerge beautiful, glorious and rich.
It’s a complete transformation.
But what we don’t talk about is the resurrection of those versions of ourselves that we used to be.
And they do die for a reason. Spending three hours every afternoon on a trampoline was never going to be a sustainable lifestyle choice. At some point, I had to grow up, and do the chores and make the money.
But that child doesn’t have to stay buried.
It can be brought back to life. And I kind of think that once we have moved through that serious phase of life – where you are learning how to live with responsibility – that after that we have a duty to bring those care-free joyous parts of ourselves back to life.
And it’s not something new. It’s something old. It’s something we used to be. It’s something we always have been. It’s something we still are.
But until we make space for it and until we give it permission, it’s going to stay buried.
Time to say yes to that playful and silly version of yourself. Let the sunlight in. Let the child have air.
We’ve been serious for far too long.
JG.
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