One confession, a bit of snot, and a whole lot of self-reflection
Let me start with a confession. A confession I never really wanted to say out loud, but one that is so ridiculously revealing that I can’t keep it to myself. Last week, I had a snot bubble. A real one. The kind you only see on toddlers at the playground who just fell over but haven’t yet realized they’re supposed to cry. The kind you see coming but react to just a second too late. The kind you stare at silently, wondering: what now?
Thank God I was alone.
Now, you should know that I’d been walking around for three weeks with some sort of horror virus that apparently specializes in attacking my sinuses. Not sick enough to stay home, but definitely sick enough to make everyone around me think I was a walking faucet with legs. Tissues? Gone. Nasal spray? Basically my best friend by now. But a snot bubble? That one caught me completely off guard. That wasn’t part of the adult sickness script.
Because adults don’t get snot bubbles. That’s an unwritten law, right? Somewhere between your fourth and fifth birthday, you lose the right to have one. Just like you lose the right to throw yourself onto the supermarket floor when you don’t get what you want. Or to burst into tears because your sibling got the wrong colored cup. You leave that phase behind, and honestly, that’s probably for the best.
But standing there in my bathroom, with that unmistakable little bubble of snot making its appearance in my left nostril, I felt something strange. Something I hadn’t felt in a very long time.
I felt youthful.
Just for a moment. A very brief moment. But it was there.
What four-year-olds still dare to do
And that got me thinking. Why do we lose all the fantastic qualities four-year-olds have? Not the snot bubbles we adults can absolutely live without those. Truly. But everything else?
A four-year-old who doesn’t feel like playing with you simply says:
“No, because I don’t like you.”
That’s it. Clear. Direct. No detours. No three-paragraph WhatsApp message that ends in such a subtle rejection you only realize two days later what actually happened. No:
“I’d really love to, but things are just soooo busy right now,”
while they’re actually sitting on the couch with a bag of chips and Netflix. Just: no. I don’t like you. Bye.
Meanwhile, we adults sit at painfully boring birthday parties for people we barely know, holding plastic cups of wine that taste faintly like cleaning products, while listening to someone passionately explain their bathroom renovation. The tiles. The grout color. The exact shade of beige they chose. And we nod. Interested nodding. We ask questions.
“Oh, did you go with epoxy grout or regular grout?”
Why? Because we can’t say no. Because we got invited and it would be rude to decline. Because we are adults.
A four-year-old would’ve left ages ago.
Food, meetings, and other forms of self-sacrifice
A four-year-old also simply refuses to eat what they don’t like. Period. They shove it off the plate, pull a disgusted face, and say:
“Yuck, I don’t like this.”
And that’s the end of it.
We, on the other hand, sit at friends’ dinner tables being served something we genuinely find revolting and we eat it anyway. Smiling. And when they ask:
“Do you like it?”
we answer:
“Delicious! What is this again?”
while secretly calculating how many bites we still need to take before it no longer looks impolite.
And meetings. Let’s talk about meetings. A four-year-old who has had enough simply stands up and walks away.
“I’m going to play now.”
We stay seated in meetings that reached their goal forty minutes ago, while the chairperson insists on discussing three more action points that could easily have been summarized in a single email. And there we sit. Nodding. Writing down notes we’ll never look at again. Saying:
“Good point.”
while our souls slowly drift out of our bodies toward the coffee machine.
Being tired and just collapsing
Four-year-olds also admit when they’re tired. They just fall asleep. Right there. In the middle of a birthday party. On the floor. Between balloons.
Meanwhile, we stand at that same party at eleven at night with eyes half shut and when someone asks:
“Are you leaving already?”
we answer:
“No, no, not yet!”
Because it’s rude to be the first one to leave. And then we find ourselves outside at half past midnight, freezing while waiting for a taxi, completely exhausted, wondering:
Why did I do this to myself?
A four-year-old would never let that happen.
And then there’s clothing. A four-year-old wears whatever they want. Preferably a princess dress combined with cowboy boots and a superhero cape. And you know what? That child feels amazing. They walk around with the confidence of someone who knows exactly who they are and doesn’t need your approval.
We try on three different outfits in the morning, stare at ourselves in the mirror, ask our partner:
“Is this too much?” change shoes twice, and still leave the house feeling like something isn’t quite right. But at least it’s socially acceptable. That’s what matters.
Crying, swallowing it down, and losing it along the way
And crying. A four-year-old simply cries when they’re sad. Or angry. Or frustrated. They let it all out and five minutes later they’re completely fine.
We swallow it down. At work. In the car. In a restaurant bathroom. We save it for later. Or we bury it so deeply we no longer remember where we left it.
The snot bubble was right
Let me be clear: I do not want to return to the era of snot bubbles. I’m fairly certain I successfully completed that chapter of my life and honestly, I’m grateful for that. Snot will always be disgusting.
But maybe, as adults, we should borrow a little more from our four-year-old selves. The version of us that simply says what it thinks. That dares to say no without writing a dissertation of explanations. That leaves when it’s tired. That refuses to eat things it hates. That gets dressed exactly how it wants without wondering what the neighbor might think.
That snot bubble in my bathroom may not have been the most glamorous moment of my life. But it was a moment of unexpected, sticky, damp and completely unintentional honesty.
And sometimes, that’s exactly enough.
Do you recognize yourself in this? Or have you managed to hold on to a little piece of your four-year-old self? Let me know in the comments. I read everything. Unless I’m tired. Then I’ll just go to sleep.
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