Is youth a number?

A notch in a timeline?

A milestone gone by?

We count the minutes, the days, the months, the years, and we assign it to our lives.

When we set it in stone, it becomes self-fulfilling – “Act Your Age.”

What if youth is time, and what if time expands?

Time is only finite, because we make it so.

Time is flexible, and expansive.

It expands when we’re following our heart.

It expands when we’re enjoying the moment.

Like a wild animal, it hates to be boxed in.  It must be free.

If not, it freezes, like a stone.  Fixed and hardened, eventually deteriorating, only to crumble apart.

Time can turn upside down, sideways, and even backwards, when we play with it.

Like clay, we can mold it and shape it any way we like.

As children, we are the time shapers.

Somewhere along the way, we lose our skills.

And we spend the rest of our lives trying to find them again.

Then we finally come home.  Too late, many say.  For time has already turned to stone.

But, time and youth are our own creation.  They live in a place that can’t be touched.  Our soul has no limits.

The trees teach me, my soul teaches me, my children teach me.

It’s time to go out and play.