It only looks like fun when you're a kid.

So what "it" am I talking about that only looks good when you're a kid?

Adult life.  Yes, this is a departure from my politically-aimed posts. 

Income tax.  Property tax.  The responsibility of caring for sick family.  Power bills.  Rising gas prices.  Flat tires.  Hours cut at work.  Food prices going up.  Carpenter ants inside the walls somewhere.  Gutters full of fir needles.  Clogged toilets that have to be un-clogged. 

How long of a list should I make?  You get the general idea.  Add the fact that the cocoon of fuzzy sureness that everything will turn out okay goes away, and adult life is grim. 

Some people get a break from adult life until something actually hits them, like their husband gets cancer, or their wife suffers traumatic brain injury in a car accident.  For them, life is still cool, fun, full of pool-side parties and laughter.

Other people turn into little adults when they are still children, or maybe teenagers.  Adulthood hit me at the age of fifteen when my dad died.  All illusions of "everything will turn out fine" were permanently shattered for me, and I watched in detached amazement as people my own age went on acting as if they were immortal.

As I get older, I gather more and more sad happenings in my past.  I also have a fund of memories, some from a somewhat carefree childhood, many more from the period after my dad died.  Many of these memories are harsh.  But many of them are uplifting.  I have had many people in my life who have listened to me when I needed to be heard.  I had parents who loved me, no matter what.  Family friends have touched my life and given me examples I try to emulate.

What does it come down to?  A long list of depressing memories?

Every person is going to have things go wrong.  Sooner or later, illness, anguish, death, injury will strike everybody.  It's what you do with your loss that makes the difference.  Are you mad at God because he took someone you love from you?  Have you decided God doesn't exist because you are now sick?

Or you can accept that life stinks, things go wrong, we get sick, and eventually we all die, and that God doesn't inflict it on you, but tries to hold out help to you, sometimes straight from him, sometimes from other people he uses.

Adult life is not all it's cracked up to be.  It's a good thing we don't know that as kids, or we couldn't have been kids.  But as we get older and gather sorrow and pain like we used to gather gravel in our shoes and burrs in our socks, we can choose to turn it into wisdom instead of bitterness.

Philosophically yours,
Spottedcat