Recess
22.92
It’s an early summer afternoon in fifth-grade social studies—yellowed world maps plaster the walls and sun rays start to leak beneath the shades. Having just finished drawing in my last few latitude and longitude lines on the day’s worksheet, I glance back and forth between the clock and my preoccupied teacher. There are five minutes left in the period. I brush the eraser shavings off my desk and take inventory of my pencil case, twice. The sun’s warmth hits my leg, offsetting the aggressively frigid AC air. Restless, I check the clock again. Only fifteen seconds have passed. It’s the longest period of the day—the five minutes before recess.
In elementary school, I remember the mad rush in the hallways as the recess bell rang—kids bursting out their classrooms and a building bursting at the seams.
Behind my elementary school, there were two woodchip islands for jungle gyms—one with a metal slide and one with a plastic slide where kids played ‘gorilla tag’, a tag variation where you weren’t allowed to touch the ground. The swings and see-saws were where kids ‘gossiped’; the basketball court was where all the sporty kids played ‘knockout’; but the most fascinating were the kids who’d just run around the field and invent games. I remember some of my friends and I pretending we were characters from Sonic the Hedgehog, a video game I was obsessed with growing up. We’d turn open fields and colored metal structures standing over mulch into Green Hill Zone (see below) and make up the rules of the game as we went. Yet, as creative as we were, I don’t remember ever thinking too much about it (a concept). For thirty minutes, it was simply fun for the sake of fun.
Lately, the topic of career has been top of mind, not in the sense of corporate advancement, but rather what I’m most curious about, who I can help most, and what lifestyle I want to have. I’ve fully abandoned the absurd idea that college is where you discover yourself and instead have turned to the ten-year-old-me for some advice.
I had a variety of dream careers growing up, but the one I remember most vividly was to become an architect. I was a Lego boy, but I also loved this one hand-me-down set from my childhood neighbor. It was a set of blue and yellow square and rectangular block pieces that attached at the edges (think a cross between legos and puzzle pieces). I would build and carry farmhouses and buildings bigger than my own short, chubby body downstairs to show my dad. I also have a vivid memory, a few years later, of me sitting on my skateboard in the middle of my cul-de-sac. Drawing sketches of hoverboards, I was certain that I was going to be the first person to design and invent the “air board.”
But somewhere along the way, there was an inflection point. I was never great at sketching nor did I believe I had the eye for design. So, in high school, like many of those around me, I got practical. There’s nothing wrong with making practical life choices, per se. But I’m starting to reflect on how my family has raised me to value practicality and stability (this is another whole letter), and to reconsider what my touchstones should be going forward.
In navigating the river of our careers, there’s value in living with your inner child in mind. Even in the workplace, I just see us as kids who have learned to suppress ourselves in the name of professionalism. One of my fears is the idea of life losing its shine—the awe of learning a new skill or simply opening a letter from a friend. So, I’ve been trying to redirect any excess value I place on status and material things. It’s okay to take yourself less seriously. It’s okay to just play. Go roll down a hill this weekend. Our inner children were imaginative, creative, and kind, and we should hold onto them before the next bell.
