Oh to be a child... one more time

I listen to them giggle and chatter. They talk about the usual stuff, school, classmates, teachers. I try to add in a few words here and there, thinking that I am one of them, hoping they won't notice how oddly I stick out. But then they point out that I am their teacher, and despite the fact that it is only for davening, and only once a week, I feel like I have been found out, I will now be named a fraud and kicked out of their little group.

But they don't mind having me there. And I think back to what it was like being a 13 year old girl, how we enjoyed the attention of older people, because it somehow validated us and made us feel less like the immature children that we were. Apparently, that is what I am to these girls. It makes me realize with a thump that I am not, and will never again be 'one of them.'

They start to get hyper, they laugh, they want to paint my nails and play with my hair. I let them, because it feels nice to be a part of their group. It is a weird feeling, wanting to be a child again, wanting to be one of them, but knowing that I am not.

They are now grating on my nerves, with their childish laughter and how they cling to me. They ask me what I think of them, and I try to answer nicely so as not to hurt their fragile egos. One of them wants me to come to her brother's bris, but I barely even know her. In a way, I want them to forget how much older I am than them, but they too want me to believe that they are older than they really are. It is kind of hard to do with the way they are acting.

I retreat, and they follow me. I finally decide it is time to leave. Playtime is over. I am frustrated and annoyed, and I wonder, why are these girls acting so immature, why can't they just behave like me?

And then I realize, they are only children, but I am not a child anymore, and I will never again be one. It is like the book "Morris the moose goes to school". (One of the first books I read as a child.) A moose goes to school, and the children hang their coats on his antlers. They recognize that he is not one of them, even as he tries so hard to blend in.

It's nice to hang out with children once in awhile, and have the illusion that you are accepted as one of them. But I've had my fix.

Now it's time to go back to the adult world and try to prove that I am really 'one of them', that I am not a child anymore.

Oh the strange world we live in.