Have you ever met a person who makes you feel like you’re a child again? A five year old who has just picked up their favourite toy - bursting with an excitement and innocence you haven’t felt in a while. You’re suddenly inquisitive about everything you see and optimistic about the prospects the world holds for you; it’s the type of optimism you thought you had but never felt. The knowledge that you had presumed you owned, was now put into perspective, yet your confidence in that knowledge grew and doubled by the second. You feel small. But not insignificant. Everything seems good, you are happy and the world is peaceful. Nothing bad ever happens.
But then that person leaves, and all the self-doubt, worry and concern you held before comes rushing back. You are now big again, with all the knowledge in the world resting in your worried little mind. You are no longer that five year old bouncing up and down with glee. You are you, standing still, staring into mid-air at nothing in particular.
“Are you okay?” your friend asks you - concerned at the glazed sheen that has been screening you eyes for the past minute.
“Yes,” you reply. “I’m fine,” you say, although you are bored and unimportant. “Yes,” you say, although the world is a terrible place filled with bad people who do horrible things. Nothing is new and all the sparkle in the world has shrivelled up into a dry, dull black ball of nothingness.
“I’m fine,” you say. “I just zoomed out for a moment. Daydreaming.”
“Let’s go catch up with them,” your friend says, gesturing to the door out of which that person had just left and starting towards it. “You know, I’ve never met someone quite like them before.”
