When I Feel Most Like a Child

The Artist's Garden at Vétheuil, 1881, Claude Monet (French, 1840-1926)

With every passing day, the footsteps of my childhood grow fainter in the distance.

Memories fade. I have nearly lived longer as an adult than as a child. What I felt in those days, are now a distant memory of a life once lived.

Day to day, I rarely think back to my youth. I am content with my life. I don’t yearn for the past and I try not to romanticize future fantasies either. There is one moment in my daily ritual, however, that reminds me of those simpler times.

When I stand in the shower after just turning off the faucet and wrap a freshly washed bath towel around my face, THAT is when I feel most like a child. For a few glorious (or terrifying) seconds I remember. I am loved. The world makes sense. I am safe.

I close my eyes, wrapped in a warm embrace. I am flooded with nostalgia: colors, sounds, tastes, emotions. Everything with such intensity. The world exists in absolutes.

I smile, my eyes welling up with tears.