Playing Tag with Change

I used to chase change.
Did we all?
But life teaches us. Life teaches us wrong. To run from change.

I’m trying to chase change again. Like a great game of tag, this back and forth. “Tag, you’re it.” I catch change and then I run, til it catches me and I decide to chase it again.

I want to grab change and hold tight and shake it and tell it what’s what, mainly that we’re meant to be together and it’s supposed to be beautiful and, like any lover, we may hurt each other, but it’d be okay because we’re destined for each other like any love story.

“I’m still figuring this out.”

“What, playing the field?”

“No.” What love is. Throwing out the rules. Clinging to the values.

I’m figuring it out. Leaving a pile of mistakes in my wake. Isn’t life about figuring it out, not just brainwashing yourself? Transforming instead of conforming.

It’s around this time of year that one line from The Great Gatsby rings in my head over and over.

“I almost forgot. Today’s my birthday.”

Only I haven’t forgotten, but I wonder if everyone else has.

That inner child wants to run around and tell everyone and be celebrated on this particular day. But then you grow up. And it doesn’t work that way. You celebrate, but it’s a ritual and it’s rarely as special as your inner child hoped.

“I haven’t had a happy birthday for years.” That’s what a friend said. And I thought it was tragic. But with each passing year, the celebration rests more on my own shoulders and less on others’.

This year, I tell myself again and again, “You can’t give in. You are special every day of every year. You are loved every day of every year.” That inner child is screaming to be noticed on my birthday, and not just by 600 facebook notifications.

This isn’t about the celebration or the adoration though….it’s about the inner child screaming. It’s about not letting it shut up.

It’s about hope, that thing that the inner child clings to and adults try to deny.

We’re so scared of being hurt. I’m so scared of being hurt. We’re born addicted to hope and change until life lies to us. And that’s why I’m trying to chase change again.

“Tag, you’re it.”