Tuesday, November 6, 2012

The Tears of a Clown

The ghosts and goblins were out last week in celebration of Halloween, and my friend Lynn’s children stopped by for trick-or-treating. Her twelve-year-old daughter, Charlie, was unrecognizable under her rainbow striped clown costume, orange yarn wig, makeup and owlish looking swim goggles. Charlie was having a great time clowning around with her younger brothers. Later that evening, Lynn’s family got together with another family they know from church to trick-or-treat. Charlie assumed the two girls in the other family would be dressed for the occasion. Wrong! One of the girls was a year older and ignored Charlie, the other girl was a year younger and was busy with her own friends. Charlie tried to have a good time but she just could not pull it off.

At home, through tears, Charlie told her mom she couldn’t understand what she did wrong. Lynn spoke to her for a bit, but it didn’t seem to help much. Before too long, she could hear Charlie shouting to her brothers about sorting through the candy. Lynn said Charlie seemed to be her happy old self again.

Lynn and I were talking about how, at times in your life, you are caught between being a kid and being a grownup. Charlie got her first taste of what that is all about, and she figured out how to move on and make her own happiness. It’s really quite a sweet story, no pun intended, but we can all learn from Charlie. We should embrace those times in our life when we can feel like a kid again. It gets a bit stuffy being the grownup all of the time. And in those times when you can’t seem to find happiness, it is up to you to choose to turn things around. We cannot leave it to others to find happiness for us. Only we know what truly makes us happy. So don’t get caught clowning around without a smile, and any clown knows it can be dangerous shedding tears when wearing goggles.

I would like to thank Lynn for sharing Charlie’s story as a reminder to all of us.
Sad Clown photo courtesy of Pink Sherbet Photography