Jenn and I took the kids to a fall festival yesterday afternoon. While there, I got to view the world through Anthony's eyes and was reminded how simple life is when you're young. The joy that comes with jumping around in a moonbounce with a friend. The excitement that goes hand-in-hand with getting to wear a red fireman's hat. How special you feel when a life-sized bear stops to give you a high-five. How nothing else in the world matters when Mom buys a bag of kettle corn...and shares it with you...and how special that makes you feel.
And then there's the not-so-simple life that never ceases to remind you that you're not a kid anymore. It's the long, meaningful talk you have with a friend over a glass of wine while the kids are napping. Conversations in which you confide in each other things that you're scared to share for fear of being judged. It's the phone call you get from another friend, informing you that her brother is in trouble - that he has become a cocaine addict and that he feels desperately depressed and alone. And then getting another phone call from her, in tears, at 11:15 that night with the news that her grandmother is dying...most likely within the next couple of hours.
Life happens. And I think that instead of being either simple or not-so-simple, it's a mix of both and accepting that we must sometimes experience the not-so-simple in order to truly appreciate the simple.
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