Are you ready to be a person now?

One of my little pleasures in life is teaching Sunday School to the kids at my church. I attend a very small church with one Sunday school room and two Sunday school classes. I usually end up with a class of 3 to 6 year olds with another teacher taking the older kids (1st to 6th grades). If this situation sounds crazy to you, then you are right… it is crazy! But I love it. I love watching the kids help each other with projects and seeing them grow together despite the age differences. It is also amazing to hear about the world from their perspectives.

This past Sunday, I only had four kids in my class which was a nice change of pass for us. The kids made BONKS Boxes (Box of Neat and Cool Stuff) to remind them of things that make them happy. Very cute idea. The youngest in the class, Lynx, was having a brutal time trying to stay still and listen. He wanted no part of putting his listening ears on. It was one of those moments where you are trying desperately not to giggle uncontrollably because you are trying to retain some semblance of control. It was not working out for me.

Eventually, I hauled Lynx onto my lap while I gave the lesson and I told him that he could leave my lap when he was ready to be a person. After a few minutes, he started to squirm and I asked him if he was going to be a person. He said yes, was released and promptly proved he was not ready to be a person. Back onto my lap he went, this time with much more fight in him.

After about five minutes, he starts squirming a bit and looks at me with these HUGE blue eyes and tells me “I’m ready to be a person now”.

Wow. Despite my expectation that Lynx acts like a person, I wasn’t expecting him to be ready to be a person. He’s 3 years old. I’m 25. I’m still not always ready to be a person. Most of the time, I’m just faking it.

I know that Lynx had next to no understanding about what those words really meant to an adult. To Lynx, being a person just meant that he got to sit on the floor with the other kids. Being a person meant liberation.

I have this idea in my head that being a person means that you have it all together and are moving forward with your life but I am also fairly certain that my idea is probably not accurate or even possible. Maybe Lynx’s idea of what being a person is – just being out there on your own – is the way I should be thinking about it.

The truth is, as an adult, I want to overcomplicate everything. I want to confuse what it really means to be a person. Maybe it is because I am not fully grounded, maybe it is because I am desperately searching for meaning that isn’t there. I overcomplicate my ideas about what being a person means as a way to justify my place in the universe.