I Hope You Always Will.

The following words are for you. You don't know me, but I saw you as I hurried to class today. You were outside, walking beside your daddy. A baby, probably no older than a year and a half.

I watched you exclaim over the leaves and grass in a series of babbling and broken phrases. After a few moments of exploration, you happened upon a small hill, and squealed in excitement as you toddled down. An excitement born of the discovery of a small hill. I watched you, and I wondered what it would be like if we, the adults, could retain that childlike happiness over the small and ordinary. If we could hold on to an awareness of the spectacular found in the simple, and so easily appreciate the uncommon beauty of common things.

This might not seem important now, but I don't want you to forget. It will be harder to remember as you grow older, but don't lose your wonder of a sunshower or the way it feels to touch a dandelion. Some people might not see it, the beauty of such things. They probably won't, often as not.

No matter what others do, I want you to let life intertwine its fingers in yours. Let it pull you haphazardly along. Jump in puddles, and soak yourself in spontaneity. Keep yourself awake to the way that raindrops line a spider web after a soft rain. Continue to let the light of the insignificant, the peculiar and the small filter through your senses in a kaleidoscope of color. Feel a quiet, beautiful ache that whispers of everything being found in the things so often deemed "nothing."

You'll grow up, one day. You'll enter a world that rushes past in a blur of paychecks and deadlines.  But through it all, I want you to hold on to that same, unadulterated joy for the beauty of leaves and grass and small hills that lead to new adventures.

I hope you always will.