Mini-me

Very recently I met a child who is very much who I was at nine years old. (Yes, I know you will cringe over so many weak linking verbs. Sorry.) This girl has absolutely attached herself to me during the children's Christmas program practices. When we put the children into groups to sing parts, this one always has to be in my group. When they come in and take seats to begin, this one always sits directly in front of where I will be standing to lead them ... and if I don't stand there, she moves. When the other children take a break and go to play games with the other program directors, this one chooses to stay back to talk with me. You might think this would bother me, but it rather tickles me.

I enjoy this, because I was this girl. I always adored the teens and young adults when I was younger. I liked the elderly too, but I didn't have that same sense of awe with them. I especially remember attaching myself to the music/theater students from Mount Vernon Nazarene College (now University) who would come down and perform for us. I remember one girl to whom I attached myself played the French Horn, which I just thought the most wonderful thing in the world ... once I knew what it was.

Even as I was attaching myself to teens, younger children were attaching themselves to me. There was one girl named Amber who adored me. I used to babysit her and her little brother all the time. Royal terrors, they could be. But Amber just thought I was the greatest thing, and I tolerated her as the teens tolerated me. Now this child who I've known since she was in diapers is a senior in high school and doesn't even acknowledge my presence. But, then, she is a teenager now, and she doesn't really acknowledge anyone. Perhaps one day she will be like me ... sitting in a Sunday School class with her former babysitter and wanting to ask "do you remember me? Do you recall the fun times we had?" but feeling too awkward about it to actually say anything. Or, perhaps, that one wasn't so much like me after all.