The things I am still learning about keeping alive.
I used to think wonder belonged mostly to children. To scraped knees and summer evenings. To imaginary worlds and library books. To girls sitting on bedroom floors surrounded by dolls and stories, believing dragons existed somewhere just beyond the edge of ordinary life.
I thought growing up meant leaving those things behind. That adulthood came with some quiet agreement. Trade imagination for practicality. Trade curiosity for certainty. Trade wonder for realism.
And for a while, I tried. I tried to become sensible. I tried to become practical. I tried to become the kind of person who only believed in things she could hold in her hands. But wonder is stubborn. It slips through cracks. It waits patiently. And no matter how many storms moved through my life, it somehow kept finding me again.
Wonder sat beside me in hospital rooms. It rested quietly between the pages of old books. It hid itself in poetry before I even knew I was writing toward healing. It looked back at me through the eyes of children. It lived in late-night conversations with Alvin. In the way Gus and Gabby stretch across the couch and somehow make an ordinary evening feel sacred. In teenagers sitting in our BFF classrooms discovering that their words mattered. In seeing a child hold their first published book and watching their eyes widen as they realize "I made something."
Wonder kept showing up. Not loudly. Not dramatically. Just quietly enough that I almost missed it. Sometimes wonder arrives so softly now that I almost mistake it for something else. For peace. For gratitude. For a moment so ordinary I nearly walk past it.
It looks like sitting across from Alvin while we talk about nothing and everything. It looks like pausing in the middle of a conversation because Gus and Gabby have done something ridiculous again. It looks like sunlight finding its way through a window and landing across the pages of a book. It looks like hearing a young person say, "Can I read what I wrote?" It looks like realizing that after all these years, my heart still knows how to lean toward beautiful things.
I am still learning that wonder is not childish. I am still learning that softness is not weakness. I am still learning that surviving and believing can live inside the same heart. Because after trauma, after grief, after cancer, after all the versions of me that had to learn how to survive I think it would have been easy to become cynical. Easy to stop looking up. Easy to stop believing in beautiful things.
But some small, faithful part of me refused. Maybe little Jenny had something to do with that. Maybe she never stopped leaving tiny lanterns along the path. Maybe she tucked dragons into library shelves and hid stars inside forgotten words. Maybe she knew something I am only now beginning to understand:
Wonder was never something I was meant to outgrow. It was something I was meant to carry. Because there are still moments when I look at the world and feel that small pull in my chest. That sacred little whisper that says:
Look.
Did you see that?
Isn't it beautiful?
And maybe the shape of wonder is not something grand after all. Maybe it looks like continuing to believe even after life gave you reasons not to. Maybe it is an old book with worn corners. Maybe it is candlelight. Maybe it is dogs sleeping nearby while someone you love is talking. Maybe it is simply looking at the world and thinking I am still glad I stayed long enough to see this.
— Jennifer Rene Wallace
Holding On to Wonder
They say that growing older means
the world grows smaller every year;
that wonder fades with childhood's days,
replaced by caution, doubt, and fear.
But somewhere still beneath my skin,
where younger versions softly stay,
a little girl still lifts her eyes
to watch the clouds drift far away.
She still believes that autumn leaves
were painted slowly, one by one;
that every bird knows secret songs,
and daisies lean toward morning sun.
She lingers where the fireflies rise
like scattered stars escaped from night.
She still looks up when thunder rolls,
still marvels at the lightning's light.
She turns smooth stones within her hands
as though each one might hold a tale,
collects forgotten feathers still,
and wonders where the wild winds sail.
She reads old books with quiet joy,
still breathes their pages, worn and sweet;
still finds entire worlds waiting there
between the covers' soft retreat.
She greets each garden bloom as if
no blossom ever came before,
and pauses just to watch the rain
come dancing softly to the door.
The world will tell us not to stop,
to hurry past what can't be bought;
to trade our wonder for success,
our questions for accomplished thought.
But I have learned that wiser hearts
are not the ones that know the most.
They're those who never lose the gift
of seeing miracles almost.
For every ordinary day
still hides a thousand things unseen:
the faithful hum of honeybees,
the hush where spring has always been.
The sacred lives in common things—
warm bread, birdsong, an evening sky.
A soul that keeps its childlike awe
will never truly grow too dry.
So if I age, then let me age
with silver hair and slower pace,
but let me never lose the eyes
that searched for wonder every place.
For I have found the richest lives
are measured not by wealth or fame,
but by the quiet, holy joy
of seeing each new day the same—
Not ordinary. Never that.
A miracle, both vast and small.
The child who taught me how to wonder
was right about the world after all.
Add comment
Comments