The Laughter of Children...

I love this time of year.  The air has that hint of cozy winter nights to come and a crisp, clean aroma.  Pumpkins are keeping front doors company and the leaves are displaying their brilliant yellows and reds.  This time of year always makes me think back to my childhood - growing up in the mountains of Colorado.  There are few things in this world that I consider to be more beautiful than a mountain side covered in Aspen trees during the Fall.  And, of course, Fall meant that soon I'd be swishing down the face of one of the ski slopes without a care in the world!

In the craziness of our busy adult lives, it's hard to remember what being a child was like.  As a child, all we wanted was to be a grown-up.  As an adult, I often times wish for those carefree days when the most pressing issue was what role I would be cast in for that year's Nutcracker or which slope I'd ski on Saturday. 

It's too bad that we can't be born old and die young.  If we could, we'd have the knowledge that years of experience brings us that would allow us to appreciate those carefree childhood days and not wish them away.   There's no telling what science will bring us in the future.  Perhaps this will be possible. But for those of you reading this right now I think we're out of luck. 

But that doesn't mean all hope is lost...

I've found myself thinking about my childhood a lot lately - smiling at the good memories and laughing at the things I thought were life-altering when I was 10 years old (if only I had known!) And I realized I was letting myself be a child again - I was laughing just because.  And during that moment, all the stress in the world melted away.  I felt refreshed and rejuvenated.  I felt like I could face whatever "adult stresses" came my way.

We don't need to be children again physically.  But we need to allow ourselves time to be children again.  In an age where all we do is work and worry, listen to politicians go at one another and disagree over the referee's call in last night's game, it's awfully hard to express the light-hearted laughter of a child.

Whether with our loved ones or in private, if we all learned to laugh like a child once a day, perhaps we'd stop wishing to be the carefree child of our past and enjoy the life we've been given as an adult.

Milton Berle once said "laughter is an instant vacation."

hahahahaha!!!  Happy travels!!

-Emily