In which we take our childhood passions and interests into adulthood

Who was I as a kid? Well, I don't remember too much about the nitty-gritty details of it all. But I know I loved theme parks, dinosaurs, Pokemon, and space. 

Obviously, all these interests still remain and are central to my personality. This is satisfying to me, as I largely kept my childhood promise to myself of "never growing up". Though that term is loaded nowadays. 

Another thing I loved was playing with toys all day. I didn't become outdoorsy until high school. But I remember I loved to build things with Legos, Tinkertoys, and Lincoln Logs. I also crafted elaborate marblecoasters and Thomas the Tank Engine sets. We still have our classic wooden sets, though thankfully we never owned the sketchy ones with lead paint. Hot Wheels (and the associated ripoff brands) were also super fun and you'd better believe I still have a bunch of them. 

I have occasionally tried playing with toys just like I did as a kid, although without anyone else there. Personally, I experienced slight awkwardness at first, and felt a little bit silly -- but that's due to arbitrarily defined cultural expectations. So I pushed past that! And I had fun. 

However, I couldn't do it for more than like 10 minutes before I started to get anxious about all the other things I needed to be doing. Furthermore, I tend to struggle with unstructured play now. I want everything to have logical continuity. As a kid, you had better believe I did not care. Experimenting with this as an adult, I legit was writing everything down in order to try and enforce some form of retroactive continuity-canon for sentient Hot Wheels lost on an alien planet. 

I think that it's good to have this free-form play as an adult. I think I will try and build this into my routine. It's good for the brain. 

My mom says she misses when we were little. I personally would love to return to that time, obviously, because it was pretty great (I am sure I have a bit of selective memory here). But, we cannot. 

If you research concepts such as not "growing up", you will find a few things. 

1. People who experience age dysphoria. Not me in the slightest, but there are some interesting things to learn and take away in those communities. 

2. Marketing concepts such as "rejuvenile" and "kidult". Nice, but little data. 

3. Super zen blogs about "remaining childlike" in the sense of retaining a sense of optimism and wonder. My sense of optimism died a long time ago, but the wonder is still there. 

4. Age regression. I am sure that is very therapeutic for those who do it, and that's great; however, I do not. 

5. Nostalgia communities. 

6. Parents who find that having kids has helped them reconnect with their childhood. I think that's great too, but I don't think I need to be a parent to enjoy cartoons like Bluey. To be honest, having kids is a gigantic responsibility and I am not sure I could handle it. Much respect for those who do. 

7. Someone saying that their SO has Peter Pan Syndrome and refuses to stop partying every weekend, or something. Last time I checked, kids don't get #wasted every weekend, so this is irrelevant to me. 

8. People complaining about Disney Adults. I am not only a Disney Adult, but I am also a Cedar Point Adult and a Harry Potter Adult, so I am at least triple-cringe. I like that these people are vocal about their hatred for all things Disney so that way I can more easily avoid them. 

9. ageplay -- not relevant here

10. Discussions about creepy people. No thank you, I would like to stay far away from them. I just still love watching cartoons and crap, not....that. Eurgh. 

It's kind of freaky watching your body change. When you see wrinkles start to appear and your hairline start to recede -- at least for me, this incited a sort of panic. Childhood and its infinite possibilities were rapidly in the rearview mirror, and the only hope I had remaining was to remember the message from Owl City's "Fireflies" -- to keep that part of yourself alive, no matter what. 

The so-called early writings of Evan Bailyn were instrumental in my decision that I would never lose my imagination or stop loving the things that I did, even if my interests were seen as "childish". Ironically, he now seems to shun these "early writings" as no longer relevant to his current businessman persona, so he has become the very thing he swore to destroy. Either that, or he is really blending in. Even so, at least he's kept the writings up -- though not the friendly little community that popped up in the comments section. Much like the community in Owl City's old blog comments section before he switched to Tumblr, that has been lost to time.