Never too old for Disneyland
By Samantha Ann Branson
“Too many people grow up. That's the real trouble with the world, too many people grow up. They forget. They don't remember what it's like to be 12 years old. They patronize, they treat children as inferiors.” – Walt Disney
It’s a very strange thing. When you’re young, you want to grow up. My father recalls that when I was 8 years old, we were in a restaurant, and I told him that I wanted to grow up to be a “serve” and when he asked me what that was, I told him- “Someone who serves food!” When you’re 8 years old, you want to be a doctor, a princess, a teacher, an astronaut, and so many other occupations. But all that never really happens for the most of us. We grow up. We become more practical. Reality hits us.
Growing up means becoming more mature, my parents told me- and it made sense. When you grow up, you gain more knowledge through school, you make better decisions, and you become more rational. You understand the concept of reality. But at what cost?
I think the most of us lose that childlike spark of happiness, and the ability to appreciate the simplest things in life. As a child, getting ice cream makes you so happy. I can still remember how happy I would feel as child, when my father would come home with 250grams of Famous Amos cookies. But not so much anymore.
And when we grow up, not only do the things that make us happy change- we have so much more to think about. Life is more complicated. It’s more than just which toy to play with or who you want to be friends with. Now we think about school, we think about work and on top of everything, we think about making money. We go to school and study hard, so that we can get a good job and earn a stable income. Money makes the world go round now, not toys and candy.
A friend once told me, that people want everything, but see nothing. It’s a very sad concept. Being caught up with everything that makes us busy makes us bypass so many other things in life. We find it hard to stop to smell the roses. I can almost say that we try so hard to be happy, when happiness is right there - only if we stop trying so hard. The harder we try, the more elusive happiness gets, or so it seems. All you need to do is to embrace the child in you. Be 12 years old again.
I’m now 21 years old, not exactly old, but not a child either. I feel like I am at the junction of adulthood. Maturity is inevitable, I believe. It may be difficult for a child to retain childlike qualities, but I am going to try. I’ve just booked my tickets to Disneyland. I don't want to ever be too old to enjoy a themepark. And I hope no one ever feels that they are.
Growing up is a double edged sword. It is necessary, and yet we want to hold on to things of the past. And it’s not simple. As Mary Lamberton Becker once said: “We grow neither better nor worse as we get old, but more like ourselves.” And I guess, that is the beauty of growing up.
