As a kid, I remember wanting to make my own decisions. Simple ones, such as when I eat, what I eat and how I eat it. How can a cookie spoil my dinner? Why does it matter if I eat it now or later? Everything was a waiting game and I didn't like the rules.
Wait until you're fourteen to babysit. Wait until you're sixteen to drive. Wait until you are eighteen to become an adult and twenty one before you can vote, drink or marry (consider this was the 60's). It seemed at every turn adulthood was just out of reach and the grass was definitely greener.
Why are we now waiting to find the fountain of youth in a jar of wrinkle cream? Why not tap into the waters that still bubble inside us? Eat the cookie! Now we have the wisdom to know that once in a while, it's okay. Play with your friends. Recently, my lifelong friends came to visit to take care of me after a chemo treatment. They arrived with mopheads to celebrate my balding head.
Lick the bowl. Build a sand castle. Run through the sprinklers. Youth is about the thrill of a moment without borders or rules. We are the same people who walked barefoot in the mud or splashed our new shoes in every puddle only 60 times (or 70 or 80 or even 90) times better, because we do know better. Doing it with friends, well, isn't that what being a kid is all about?
You are only as young as you feel, if you act as young as you feel.