Day 130 - Little boy

"Little boy" drawn by eldest daughter.

The little boy in me is happy. The little boy in me is proud. The little boy in me looks at the adult me with sparkles in his eyes and says:
“I want to be like you when I grow up!”
“Well you can, little boy, you can be anything!”
The little boy picks up his ball and runs away over the lawn. I stand and look after him. It’s a sunny day in the park. I see how he plays with the ball, lets the ball bounce and just follows it wherever it goes. When the ball takes an unexpected turn he giggles and chases it further. I would like to live my life like that: just following it, joyfully.
I stand there and feel a warmth in my belly just by knowing that the little boy is proud of me and does not worry about me. Where my life has taken me the little boy looks at me with sparkles in his eyes and I know that when I wake up in the morning I have nothing to hide.
“So you’re back. Did you have fun playing with the ball?”
“Yes. But I got scared of that man over there”.
He points in the direction where he played. On the bench at the side of the lawn sits a man with a bottle in his hand.
“Did he say anything to you?”, I ask.
“No - he just looked at me with this strange look. Like he knew me”.
I look at the man sitting on the bench with his hanging head. He takes a sip every now and then from his bottle and he reminds me of someone. He tries to speak to people that pass but nobody stops to answer.
Suddenly he looks in my direction and I look into my own eyes. I look into what could have been me. In his eyes I see sorrow, disappointment and loss and something that broke a long time ago. He looks at me like he’s trying to tell me something but that he cannot find the words. He lifts his hand but then looks down and takes another sip. He doesn’t look up again.
I look at the little boy and it hits me: It's not whether the little boy can be me when he grows up but the other way around: whether I STILL can be the little boy. He does not need to change to become me. I need to make sure that I do not change to something else than him. The little boy is the pure essence of me when I love myself and just take life as it comes. To be the little boy I must have a clear mind, a loving heart and feel proud of myself. The only thing I know that can prevent me from doing that is alcohol.
Onward and upwards, comrades.

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