Uninhibited and Free: a Reminiscence of Childhood

An uninhibited child during the summer is free.

I remeber when I was a kid I would go up to my father and say, ”I’m bored” and he would scowl and tell me to read a book or something. When my child suffers from boredom, I’ll say, “Good, that means you‘re on the precipice of genius.” And, I was. My sister and I invented games we’d play for hours. My imagination boomed like fireworks on the 4th of July. I didn’t start feeling restricted until I was older, “wiser.” I had lost some of that imagination that fuled my childhood. The sweet, opulent fruits of my boredom shriveled away with each new responsibility. Sometimes I can still feel her spark of ingenuity, seeping through my fingers, grasping for that freedom of thought I once took for granted. I believe you know what freedom is when it’s lost. Freedom was the days I would spend at the beach where everything that mattered was the here and now. Shells shimmered under a translucent wave and I was in love with life which I swallowed in gulps after swimming for hours in the sea.

Fearless novices are free and children are the epitome of novice and if encouraged—fearless. I cringe when thinking of all the ways in which parents restrict their child’s freedom when they plan all their activities, shield them from failure, and hover too close. Imaginations’ embers stifled by a parent’s fear; it’s ironic how the best of intentions can produce the worst results.

I think freedom is relative for everyone and is best captured by a feeling, a feeling keenly missed when lost. Where there used to be seemingly endless amounts of freedom, now in adulthood, there are glympses. I work and I spend my freedom well. I saved for a year to venture to Ireland to be enchanted by her folklore and gaze upon rolling hills dotted with white sheep. I wait until the weekend to go hiking and lose myself among Douglas-Fir, Pine and Spruce trees. I wait until the end of each day to see my love come home and feel his arms around me. When we’re bound to the things that keep us alive and whole, is that freedom? I go back to the beach of my childhood, mostly in my mind, wherein I find the purest form of freedom.