CHILDLIKE JOY

             

                

 Image credit: www.canstockphoto.com

        The evening breeze conveyed little children's shrill laughter and chatter into Mandy’s ears. Squeals of delight came from the children as they jumped several times on a mattress placed on a floor in the garden. Two of the children were her nieces; one was her nephew while others were neighbours. Yesterday, like many others days, they had played on a mattress in the ‘children’s room’. But once Tobi, Mandy’s nephew collided with a wall clock that fell clattering on the floor, Mandy had angrily pulled a mattress out of the house when the children couldn’t stop jumping on a mattress.

            Mandy watched the children’s hilarious display with enthusiasm even though she was supposed to leave for her room as soon as she had dropped the mattress for the kids in the garden. They swayed irrationally just like the way some red hibiscus flowers danced to the rhythm played by the wind. They also threw pillows at each other and shrieked with laughter as they fell on one another.  Suddenly, she started to envy the children’s naivety about life. They played all day; they got no worries, no target or goal to meet and most importantly no heartbreaks. While she was a little girl, she remembered vividly, how eager she was to grow. She wore her sisters' lipstick on her tiny lips and many times she fell while she tried to cat walk with her sisters’ high heel shoes. She didn’t do so much of child’s play because she grew up with grown up siblings who had criticised her childish behaviours. Therefore, she quickly jumped into acting like an adult thinking it was more pleasurable, not knowing that life's challenges grow with a person's age. After she had grown up to be a lady, she realised that being one is not as easy as she thought. To look classy and stay in vogue required a lot of money that wasn’t so easy to come by. However, to find a true love was way more difficult than acquiring money. It was only in Disney’s movies and in harlequin’s books that true love seemed to happen like a magic. From her past experiences with men, she had grown to believe that there was no true love. Worst of it all, her sister, Tolu even emphasized that in so many marriages love had become scarce. If only her mother understood that, she would stop singing the ‘go and get married’ song into her ears.         

            All of a sudden, after standing for minutes observing the children and thinking to herself, Mandy pulled out one of her sandals carefully, she pulled out the other without any hesitation. She ran irrationally towards the children and jumped on the mattress before they could ask any question. The children, especially the little girls, shrilled with laughter as they watched her jump several times on the mattress. She also threw pillows at them as they threw at her. She didn’t know if her huge body size was the cause of the hilarity or the weirdness in her behaviour. She looked like a fool to herself but she wanted to experience the childlike joy again. As she bounced on the mattress playfully, she pretended that her numerous ugly thoughts bounced off her mind. It wasn't so easy not to think of Ade whom she had dated for two years but broke her heart with one of his flimsy excuses. Or her colleague, a young dude who would only smile at her anytime she looked elegant.  She knew it wasn't going to be possible to have a clear mind like a child, but she could pretend to have joy like a child. She needed to regenerate the childlike joy, she wanted the burden of life's targets and expectations lifted off her shoulders, the stress of her family and work lifted from her body and spirit. She wanted to have ecstasy like the children who merry like there was no tomorrow. They found joy and excitement in so many things and the existence of tomorrow seemed to be absolutely nothing to them so they had no worries about it.  Though naivety was responsible for the childlike joy, however, Mandy wanted it anyway.