I want to want to skip

I was on the bus this morning and I was sitting behind this little girl and her mom. She had on a cute little plaid school uniform, a ponytail with ribbons in her hair (the little girl, not the mother ;). She was adorable. When they first got on, she asked if she could sit on the inside seat so she could pull the “stop” cord. And she was so excited when she got to pull it! Then when her stop came — “ an elementary school about a half mile from my house — she got off the bus, waved back to her mom and skipped down the sidewalk to the front door.

I used to skip.

But I don’t think anyone/thing/place excites me like that anymore.

And though I know it’d be wildly unsexy and probably just plain inappropriate for me to skip anywhere now, I kinda want to skip.

Or maybe I just want to want to skip.

I’ve heard older folks say stuff like “Enjoy your youth” or “I wish I could be a kid again.” But I’ve never really identified. Maybe it’s because I’ve never thought I was old. But this morning I found myself actually envying an 8 year-old. With all the crap going on in the world, this little girl has a place that makes her so happy she has to skip to get there; what filled my heart even more was that she was skipping to get to SCHOOL.

A little black girl in Southeast D.C. so excited about school she almost ran to get there. Why isn’t that the lead story on the news?

I feel like there’s so much more I could say about how I feel right now, but I think I wanna keep it for myself ;)