Surrendering the things of youth

Our guest blogger for this portion of the Desiderata Project is my lovely wife, Brooke. Thanks, honey!

Take kindly the counsel of the years,

gracefully surrendering the things of youth.

I was at a birthday party a few weeks ago for a little girl who was turning five. Her mom (our friend) had turned the backyard into a western jamboree, Nothing over the top, but planned with care and lots of fun. The kids were shooting at plastic bottles with water guns, trying to knock them over. They were pinning the sheriff star on their daddies. I looked around at us…not the preschool kids, but the parents. Most of us are in our early thirties and employed in the education field, pretty much doing what we love. We have a couple of kids, mortgages and health plans. Ten years ago, we were all still in college—finding our passion, meeting our partners, staying up till 3 AM on a regular basis laughing with our friends. And it occurs to me that there are many “best years” of your life. 

I think  people cling to “youth” because hey are afraid it will mean the end of the best years of their life. But, actually, by clinging to the things they have outgrown, they are missing out on the next “best” thing.

Surrendering the things of youth doesn’t mean growing old or un-hip or any of the other things our youth-obsessed society tells us. All of us at that birthday party? We were having a good time, cracking jokes…and not one of us was has “let ourselves go” or was wearing “Mom Jeans.” (I’m not saying having a baby means you automatically gracefully surrender the things of youth. There are many parents who haven’t, and there are many people without children who have.)

What it does mean is that you have decided you are ready for more—to love more deeply, to give more freely, to understand more and judge less. You are ready to listen. To sacrifice. To see a bigger picture. To be forever young, but without the self-absorption of adolescence, the impatience of childhood and the neediness of babyhood. To be the one shooting a water gun along side your kids, feeling your heart swelling with love as you watch them sing “Happy Birthday,” helping to clean up the cake and ice cream, and carrying the two year old out saying, ”Okay, you’re getting tired now.” And that’s only as far as I’ve gotten. But as I continue on this journey, I know I will need to continue to surrender…  to not mourn the passing of the years, but to look forward to what it ahead…the next best years.