Has it really been more than a year since I last posted to this blog? Wow. Well, it's a new year and a new decade. It's time for a fresh start.
I was walking out of our church fellowship hall this morning, crossing the pavement towards my parked car. Our church's parking lot has these black-and-yellow striped speed bumps bolted into the asphalt, and I soon found myself doing a balancing act along one of them, putting one foot in front of the other. It wasn't until I reached the end of the speed bump that I stopped to think, "now why did I just do that?"
I tend to do things like that a lot. While going down a sidewalk, if there is a raised curb or landscaping bricks that I can walk along instead, I'm so there. While climbing a flight of stairs, I still see how many I can skip with each step. I don't do this consciously...it just happens.
But then I start reflecting on the fact that you don't really see many adults doing things like this in public. Here I am, a 21-year-old senior in college, preferring the adventure of walking on the curbs to the dull pragmatism of just walking down the sidewalk.
Does this mean I'm still in my childhood? Will there be a morning that I wake up and all of a sudden prefer the boring route instead of the exciting one? Maybe it's not so much a matter of preference as much as the self-control to adapt my behavior to society's standards of pedestrianism.
But when will this switchover happen? Will it happen? If that's what it means to be an adult, do I even want it to happen?
So what if I decide I want to walk on the curb, keeping my balance as if stepping off would mean certain-death, instead of trudging along the weathered thoroughfare like mindless cattle? Does this make me childish? Does it make me less of an adult?
Maybe someday I will outgrow this urge. Maybe someday I really will prefer to just take the interstate instead of the more interesting backroads. Maybe someday I really will prefer to just take one step at a time instead of challenging myself to take more, even if others are watching.
If I wake up tomorrow and prefer the dull way of getting to where I'm going, so be it. I guess I will have "grown up." But maybe I won't. Maybe I'll always prefer the more exciting way, even if it means other adults don't understand my reasoning or give me strange looks.
I think I can live with that. I think I might want to.
So the next time you see me walking along the rim of a big fountain, stare all you want. You know you want to do exactly the same thing.
I was walking out of our church fellowship hall this morning, crossing the pavement towards my parked car. Our church's parking lot has these black-and-yellow striped speed bumps bolted into the asphalt, and I soon found myself doing a balancing act along one of them, putting one foot in front of the other. It wasn't until I reached the end of the speed bump that I stopped to think, "now why did I just do that?"
I tend to do things like that a lot. While going down a sidewalk, if there is a raised curb or landscaping bricks that I can walk along instead, I'm so there. While climbing a flight of stairs, I still see how many I can skip with each step. I don't do this consciously...it just happens.
But then I start reflecting on the fact that you don't really see many adults doing things like this in public. Here I am, a 21-year-old senior in college, preferring the adventure of walking on the curbs to the dull pragmatism of just walking down the sidewalk.
Does this mean I'm still in my childhood? Will there be a morning that I wake up and all of a sudden prefer the boring route instead of the exciting one? Maybe it's not so much a matter of preference as much as the self-control to adapt my behavior to society's standards of pedestrianism.
But when will this switchover happen? Will it happen? If that's what it means to be an adult, do I even want it to happen?
So what if I decide I want to walk on the curb, keeping my balance as if stepping off would mean certain-death, instead of trudging along the weathered thoroughfare like mindless cattle? Does this make me childish? Does it make me less of an adult?
Maybe someday I will outgrow this urge. Maybe someday I really will prefer to just take the interstate instead of the more interesting backroads. Maybe someday I really will prefer to just take one step at a time instead of challenging myself to take more, even if others are watching.
If I wake up tomorrow and prefer the dull way of getting to where I'm going, so be it. I guess I will have "grown up." But maybe I won't. Maybe I'll always prefer the more exciting way, even if it means other adults don't understand my reasoning or give me strange looks.
I think I can live with that. I think I might want to.
So the next time you see me walking along the rim of a big fountain, stare all you want. You know you want to do exactly the same thing.
