Ignorant Invincibility

My goal for tomorrow is to write a hilarious post about what you learn while packing for a move, but today I’m too spooked by the wind blowing after last night’s storm to be hilarious.

Lucky you.  Click away while you still can!

One of our students posted a status update on facebook, “Childlike faith [is]… Reckless abandon, because children are ignorantly invincible.”

I’m still pausing to read this over and over.

Reckless Abandon = childlike faith = Ignorant Invincibility.

One of the things I love so much about the 2-to-4-year-old age is the way everything is new and exciting and curiosity is never quenched.

Today Dos ran up to me with her hands cupped around an earthworm.  “Oh, that’s cool, girl!” I told her.  Then I looked again and said, “You need to wash your hands – they’re covered by dirt!”  “That’s not dirt, mom,” she corrected.  “That’s mud!”

She is discovering her sense of humor and tries to explain why things are funny.  She gets wildly excited when things “click” for the first time.

She has a faith that the world is generally full of good people and is an exciting place begging to share its secrets.

Here I am, this old(er) broad, all jaded and sarcastic and all-doubting.  I have to make peace with the WORST POSSIBLE OUTCOME of any decision before I’m comfortable moving forward into a change.

Like snowboarding!  I had to be ok with the knowledge that I might possibly get my brains joggled loose and not be able to sit down for the rest of my life because I’d broken my patooski before I learned!  I finally decided eternal standing and drooling idiocy were a small price to pay for the glorious experience of sliding down a mountain with a board strapped to my feet and my thighs in burning agony.  Never regretted it.

But… if I were ignorant of all the bad things that could happen… if I just believed I was invincible because, well, hey, why wouldn’t I be?…

What good might I be capable of completing?

What broken heart might be healed because I was not too afraid of being rejected to strike up a conversation?

What ambition might be realized because my head was full of “atta-girl’s” instead of “maybe nots”?

I’m left puzzling over this quote and slightly chagrined that I haven’t done more with my everyday hours.  I’m curious what I have inhibited myself from achieving?

I don’t want to live a life that looks like Buddy on Elf trying to ride an escalator for the first time – one leg going up the moving staircase while the other toe grips the solid ground and then is pulled behind…  Never fully committing to growing forward but also never settling fully into what’s being left behind.

I don’t want to lose an appreciation and genuine interest in the world around me… I want to be child like!

What would you do if you were ignorantly invincible?

(On a complete aside, did you know if you type “invincible” as a Google image search you get a zillion pictures of Michael Jackson?  Just thought I’d share.)