To be a kid at heart, for me, is to keep the door to wonder slightly ajar — even when life tries to close it. It’s not about immaturity or refusing to face reality. It’s about remembering how it once felt to live without the weight of constant caution. To wake up curious. To love without strategy. To trust the world a little more than it deserves.

Sometimes, I catch glimpses of that child in me — the one who used to stare at clouds for shapes, who could find joy in the simplest of things. She visits when I laugh too hard at something silly, or when I let a raindrop fall on my open palm instead of running for cover. She reminds me that it’s okay to be amazed, even by ordinary things. And that joy doesn’t always need a reason; sometimes it just arrives quietly, like sunlight through a window you forgot to open.

As adults, we build walls made of logic and survival. We plan, we schedule, we protect ourselves from disappointment. But being a kid at heart means knowing when to put the armor down — to let spontaneity have its turn. It’s saying yes to road trips with no destination. It’s stopping for ice cream even when the weather says no. It’s allowing yourself to be moved by a song you’ve heard a thousand times before.

The world has a way of hardening us, of replacing curiosity with caution, dreams with deadlines.

But I think being a kid at heart is a kind of quiet resistance — a choice to stay soft in a world that rewards hardness. It’s not pretending that life is easy; it’s remembering that life can still be beautiful, even when it’s not.

And maybe that’s the real secret. Growing up doesn’t mean losing your inner child — it means learning how to hold their hand while walking through the storms. Because if you can still find joy after everything, if you can still look at the world and whisper, “wow,” even once in a while — then you haven’t really lost your childhood. You’ve simply learned how to live it with wisdom.