Silly is the new black

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Remember a time when the only responsibilities you had were cleaning your room, eating your vegetables and doing homework?

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Before we ventured in to adulthood - before relationships, paying taxes, raising kids, and managing our finances, we had a lot of free time to just be.

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Somewhere between adolescence and adulthood, we lost our silly. Not even realizing our lives have become devoid of that carefree spirit which navigated our actions and allowed us to simply have fun.

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Granted, what's considered fun to us grown-ups is surely different from a twelve-year old's idea of a good time - but it's the idea that we didn't feel the need to allow ourselves the pleasure that strikes me. Our adventures were effortless.

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We also didn't think twice about being silly. Fun and silly are prerequisites for being a kid, like selective hearing and the dog eating your homework.

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As a kid, my older sister and I would walk across the busy highway to the local arcade for some Pac Man and Donkey Kong fun. We'd spend hours mesmerized by those little cartoon characters controlled only by our joysticks and crazed passion for beating the high score. After every quarter was spent, we'd find our way back home before dark. I'd be vibrating on strawberry slushies and Atari adrenaline, singing Michael Jackson tunes while moonwalking across the street.

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My sister was mortified.

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"Who cares?"

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"You're embarrassing me."

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Of course I just sang louder.

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Then I grew up.

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It's been years since I sang and danced in public the way I did when I was eleven. Parties don't count. Neither does alcohol. I'm talking about simply allowing myself - just for a second - to look like a crazy person in broad daylight - for no other reason than because I felt like it.

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This past Saturday was one of those perfect spring days. I decided to take a walk around my new neighborhood and, as always, was plugged in to my favorite music. After an hour, I was at the local high school tackling the bleachers. With every step, I got more and more in to the groove. When my iPod shifted to Stevie Wonder's Do I Do, I couldn't help myself. My fingers began snapping, my head was bobbing and my hips started shaking.

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As I walked home I owned the memory of what just went down. And I vowed to let in my silly more.

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Seriously. Life as an adult is a pain in the ass, so to tap in to our inner-clown should really be required living. We'd all have so much more fun if we just realized - that it's totally okay to have some.

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