Blanket Forts – At Sea – [11/04/2015]

There are so many days that I wish I was still at the age when I could build a blanket fort and think myself safe from the world. It seems sometimes that we are all in such a hurry to grow up that we completely miss the exceptional blessing that is being a child…when we are allowed to cry when we’re in pain, and sleep when we’re exhausted.
Those should be basic human rights, but they’re not, not really. Not all the time. How often does anyone really say what’s on their minds and mean it? How many times do we play the doormat for people because we don’t want to offend, or take our anger out on others without thought that they too have feelings.
I work with technology; cold, hard, emotionless numbers and circuits. I know where I stand with it but it didn’t start out that way. I started out as a girl with a suitcase full of books wanting to see the world beyond her blanket fort. I still am that, most of the time.
Except when I’m not.
Except when the work gets too hard and the people too harsh and somehow I lose sight of that little girl with the suitcase. I can usually find her again, but it’s taking longer and longer each time these days. Sometimes I worry that she’s disappeared into her fort for good and I may never get her to come out again. Perhaps that’s a good thing; perhaps she’s safer there after all. I wish I could join her much of the time.
There were so many things I wanted to do when I got too old for blankets and couch cushions. I wanted to start a nightclub, I wanted to be a marine biologist, I wanted to make some kind of difference in the world.
Now, all I want most of the time is to crawl back into the world that little girl used to build under a tree on the beach and not come out for a good long time.