I Don’t Wanna Grow Up!
Photo from the Toys R Us jingle
Whew Chile. It’s been a week. As I processed all that we experienced, as Americans, then as Black folx, Black women, Believers, inside our community and inside us, I wrestled with pain, rage, sadness, disappointment, affirmation and even silence….until I found myself singing a jingle I’d not thought about or sung in over 45 years. Lying in bed before I realized, I sang, “I don’t wanna grow up, I’m a Toys R Us kid,” with heavy emphasis on the “don’t wanna grow up!” As a child, the hardest decision I had to make was attempting to minimize the number of desires I circled in the newspaper insert depicting toys that promised to bring me endless joy. Now, the decision to “unfriend” or “mute” presents as an opportunity to remove myself from being greatly pained. Who knew growing up would be accompanied by not only bills, jobs and rent but also managing your expectations of others? As one of my friends and former colleagues once said, “It’s raggedy.” And yet, here we are.
Often when I present on equity, I end with a quote by Lilla Watson. It reads, “If you have come to help me, please go home. But if you have come because your liberation is somehow bound with mine, then stay and we may work together.” That is the essence that undergirds our problem. We fail to see our connectedness, our interdependence with one another. As Jesus departed, He instructed the disciples in the following manner, “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them... and teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you" (Matthew 28:19-20). In other words, the liberation in Christ - through Christ was to be extended to as many as possible. It wasn’t conditional. It wasn’t rooted in hate. It wasn’t rooted in privilege. It wasn’t rooted in certain ancestral markers. It wasn’t rooted in race. It was rooted in love.
When we were children, it wasn’t hard to love. In fact, monumental disagreements could be solved quickly with love being reinstated by sharing a piece of candy, or allowing someone to ride your bike. However, our divide is far greater. Our wounds are deep; and discrimination, exclusion and evil have created gaping holes in our being. And in this moment, it’s hard to envision mending, healing and togetherness. What will comprise our scar tissue as we seek to travail from here? I find myself getting overwhelmed and resort to humming the jingle again…
But here’s the thing. Even as a child I learned about the hate that this country was built upon and accordingly, the liberation Lilla Watson spoke of was not designed for everyone. But God. No matter what I learned in history, or what I was exposed to from my elders’ narratives of “overcoming,” and “pressing their way,” there was one common ingredient, a rooted belief that we, even as Black folx could see and experience the goodness of the Lord, in the land of the living. So, as long as we have breath, we must curate all the joy we can stand - and look for ways to see our liberation bound with someone else.
I’m still working through my grief and oh how I wish that a grape Now & Later could be the resolution. But since I’m grown, I have the responsibility to engage grown up behavior - difficult conversations, operating in truth, accepting facts, doing my level best to not harm others, serving the disenfranchised, choosing to mimic Jesus (with a slight lean to the knocking over of tables) and to embrace my community just as children did with Geoffrey the Giraffe. As the song goes, “I don’t wanna grow up, but baby if I did…” I must allow these actions to be my virtue. Anything less is childish.