Growing in Thirds

I went dancing tonite for the third time with the State Swing Society. The first time I went, in costume, I was stiff. I left early cause I couldnt ask anyone to dance and couldnt make myself dance unless I knew that I knew how to do ti right. I couldin't relax, so I couldn't enjoy it.
Seven years. Seven years is about one third of my life now. I look back at that interval. Fourteen years ago I was seven years old. I don't remember anything from before then. Not a thing. At all. I remember a cake for my eight birthday. I think thats My earliest memory that I can recall without the aid of pictures to show me.
I remember Blake Chappel, who I considered my best friend. I remember feeling so dumb compared to him, but I was eight, and I didn't care. I was a Dumb kid. I used to feel ashamed of my childhood, not because I was a terrible child (though i might have been) but because i saw how really dumb I was. But at the time I thought I was dumb, and I didn't care. I knew when I was seven that I didn't know some of the things the other kids did. And I LOVED it. I was the weird, crazy, talkative, off the wall kid. I lived in my imagination.
Seven years ago I was fourteen. I'm not sure what happened this year, but things changed. I changed. I started that process of growing up. Maybe it was SSI, maybe it was changed in my family life, maybe it was something else, but for sure it was G-d in HIS sovereignty, shaping me into who he wanted me to be. However, whenever, why ever, that year my brain caught up. If there is any intelligence, any logic, any skill in me as far as thinking goes, it becan to develop when I was fourteen. I Corinthians 13:11 "When I was a child, I spoke like a child, thought like a child, argued like a child; now that I have become a man, I have finished childish ways." That verse fit me.
But with this most recent third of my life, I was an adult. Yes i made mistakes before, but they were the mistakes of a child: breaking two of moms china bowl in less than five minutes because I set them in the same place on the counter; bashing my head against a mailbox post cause I wasn't looking where I was going. As an adult, the mistakes you make are more subtle, but much bigger.
With my ability to think I slowly lost my childhood. That is obvious if you think about it. I no longer was content with being dumber, even if it meant I was no longer care-free. In fact I became quite the opposite of care free; you could say I became care-intensive. From fifteen to seventeen I became depressive because i over-thought everything. yet still had my childhood selfishness. Everything was about me, and when you think as much as I did, everything becomes bad.
By the time I got to my first job at sixteen, i was known by the people at work as "the guy who killed his inner child". No more naivete, which was good, no more dumbness, which was good, But also no more joy. No more carefree willing ness to accept life. I thought i was still that child, but I had become a hardened adult.
Through events In my life after high-school my heart was thawed and refrozen and thawed again as people came and went from my life. Now here I am, looking back on twenty-one years. I was Toad, then Nate, now Nathan.
I've swung through two extremes. I look back on the fourteen year old kid. Nate. He was so full of life. I sometimes think I dont experience half of what he did as I see the world. Sure, I've been more places, done more things, but there is a lot i haven't really SEEN.
As I danced tonite, the third time with this group, I was told i was too stiff. I was. I am. But I let go. For a while there, dancing with Vikki and Monica and the other girls who's names i have forgotten (yeah, that sounds good), I was able to dance. It may not seem like it to any reader, but for me it was big. I didn't have to know how to do the moves. I did them. I even kept time, but I wasn't trying to. I did part of a Martial Arts Kata to a song. I lookd so stupid, but I didn't care. I was fourteen again.
No, I'm not Nate, the carefree fourteen year old. I have harder eyes, a stronger body, and a more discerning heart. But for a few hours, to the right music, with the right people, I could dance.
I don't need angels to talk to me, to speak in a forgien toung that I don't really know, or get slain in the spirit. I can dance. I can close my eyes and say to G-d, "I'm a kid again. Look, G-d, I can dance. You made me to do this. You made me to see the world through hard eyes and thoughtful discernment, but you also made me a carefree kid. And that kid, who you made, is dancing."
I miss that kid i was sometimes. I miss being carefree and loose and lost in the world. But I like who I am, the conglomeration of that dumb kid, that selfish teen, and now this adult. I like who G-d made me.
If that makes any sense.