There is something about "grown-ups" that I have been wary of for as long as I can remember—and I have memories from when I was two. It's a quality that has always been very important to me not to adopt.
I recognized it when I was little, and it scared me so much that I didn't want to get older. How could I avoid it if I didn't understand what it was? Maybe it could come upon me all of a sudden before I could do anything about it. Maybe it was one of those horrible things that come upon you, and then you don't mind. Maybe part of possessing the quality is that you don't mind possessing the quality.
I dreaded turning sweet sixteen.
I recognized that not all grown-ups shared this terrible quality—whatever it was—to the same degree. There were a handful of grown-ups who were still largely okay. They weren't fully okay, but they hadn't completely adopted the terrible quality, or maybe they still had some good one that protected them, like some kind of psychic amulet.
I'm still not sure what the quality is, but I suspect that it has to do with imagination, and I suspect that Antoine de Saint-Exupéry knew what it was.
I'm still scared of the quality, but I know that it does not overtake you all of a sudden before you can do anything about it, because I can feel myself fighting it every day. I fight it every time a kid tells me about a rock he found; every time a dance student launches into a conversation she had with her mom; every time an adult talks about a child as if he isn't right there, hearing everything said.
The quality has something to do with priorities and perspective, and maybe personhood, although that might be my obsession with alliteration talking.
I think I've avoided the quality for the most part, or maybe I have the psychic amulet too. I know this because of the way The Little Prince and Christopher Robin make me feel. It's some kind of soul-related equivalent of Cogito ergo sum.
I hope that when kids talk to me, they feel the same kind of vague reassurance and relief that I found in the adults who were still largely okay. If they do, then it means I'm right, and I haven't succumbed. One of the worst things I can imagine is that the quality turns out to be imperceptible to those affected. Or maybe not caring would still be worse.
~Stephanie
