On the last day of Kindergarten I turned from my Crayola masterpiece to my parents and told them, “Well this has really been a waste of my time.”

In all fairness my parents had indulged me the year before and let me drop out of preschool, but then for some reason had determined that Kindergarten made it legit.  That I had to completely finish Kindergarten before moving on to 1st grade, then 2nd and some day (far, far away in a far, far off land, or so it seemed to me at that time) college.  And while I love and respect my parents, 21 years later I have to say, “Says who!?”

Who made it mandatory that we lay our lives out in a line, starting with grade school, moving through high school, college and up the ladder right to the glass ceiling (if you’re still employing that line of thought)?  In real life people don’t live in lines.  I mean sure some of us planned on being cops and robbers as 5 yr. olds then ran the lines to become exactly those things (see parents of the latter, linear living ain’t so great now huh?).  But in most cases I would say a good percentage of us aren’t even using our undergrad degrees and have ran the professional gamut leaving us in a completely different career than we started with our first job.  It’s not because we’re all having identity crises (well…) or because we think it’s fun to spend thousands of dollars to become more well-rounded.  It’s because you can’t predict life.  You have to live it.

As a 5 yr. old I knew that secret which I then spent the next 21 years being brainwashed into forgetting.  I knew that sometimes I might have to leap, skip or dance in circles to get to where I’m going else spend a ridiculous amount of time walking the line.  I had sass and spunk and I spoke up.  I had opinions.  I made decisions.  I was a flipping little 5 yr. old version of the self I keep trying to become (well with hopefully a little better fashion sense…and boobs – albeit small, Asian cursed ones).  So here’s to a little circular living and getting back some of that 5 yr. old swagger.  And this time I’m not wasting my time.

[Photo Credit: luigi diamanti]