I is for... Innocence, A to Z Challenge

I've lived for 37 years.  37 years of hope and disappointment, lessons in kindness and cruelty.  37 years to learn to be an adult and to take everything with a grain of salt.  37 years has taught me a lot.  But it's my 2 and 5 year olds that remind me of what I'd forgotten.  That there is wonder around you, if you can only remember the innocence that lets you see it.
Innocence makes fast friends on the playground.  Not necessarily friends for life, but friends for a few hours.  And that's all that you need sometimes.  Someone to enjoy yourself with, to run and play with, that makes your life better even if only for an afternoon.
Innocence sees the wonder in the world around you.  Everything gives you an opportunity to see something new, something you'd never considered before.
Innocence teaches you that every day is a new day, ready to begin again.  Yesterday doesn't matter any longer.  It's gone.  Tomorrow is so far away.  So you need to enjoy the now.
Innocence opens you to simplicity.  Nothing is complicated.  Friends are friends.  Going to the park is fun.  Walking around the grocery store means you meet new people.  Life is black or white with no grays lurking to catch you.  Life is what it is and you don't need to over think it.
Being a parent, I have to live in the gray times sometimes.  I have to remember the hard lessons.  But I don't have to let them rule me.  Keep them in the back of my mind, and look at the world through my children's eyes.  It makes me happier in the long run when I do so.