There was a season in my life when I unexpectedly became obsessed with unicorns. It was a surprising and startlingly strong obsession that resulted in unicorn balloons, unicorn names, unicorn books, unicorn songs, unicorn jokes…
My age during said season? Twenty-four. Yes, twenty-four years old.
A few days ago, my supervisor made a joke about unicorns, and my entire face lit up. A month ago, one of my coworkers off-handedly guffawed at unicorns in a conference call, and I immediately messaged another woman on the team: “I LOVE unicorns!!!” (I think she thought I was crazy.) And just last week, I framed and hung on my wall my favorite unicorn quote of all time (see that amazing photo to the left...) .
Unicorns? For a 24-year-old attempting to grow up and be a professional citizen of the world? I promise I’m not crazy, delusional, or that crazy girl from the movie “Dodgeball.” In fact, I promise that (at least on most days), I am a well-adjusted, mature, grown-up who has a professional work bag, uses a food processor, and drops phrases like “differentiated leadership,” “vision alignment,” and “group dynamics” like they are my first language.
So why the unicorn fetish, you may ask?
Because unicorns remind me to simply delight.
My basic tendencies in life are to word hard, be productive, to accomplish things, to achieve excellence, to get things done, to make a genuine impact. And with that bulky list of “work, produce, accomplish, achieve, and get it done,” it’s no wonder that delighting in life is usually not my first mode of operation.
Enter unicorns.
Unicorns, in all their ridiculous childishness, remind me to find joy in the whimsical. To belly laugh hard. To light up at the childish, to giggle at the ridiculous, to embrace the dreamlike. To love something simply because it’s fun. For all of the logic, ambition, leadership, drive, and accomplishment that my life typically reflects, the unicorn is a delightful breath of air – an unanticipated sparkle of whimsy in an otherwise orderly life.
The past year has been the most delightful year of my entire life. Not by any means the easiest year – it’s been accompanied by challenges, tears, transitions, and pain, but it has been so delightful. I have laughed myself to tears on a regular basis. I have taken risks. I have awkwardly danced and weddings and liked it. I have painted things and sewed things and rearranged things on a whim just to be creative. I have taken spontaneous road trips. I have sang loud to the wrong lyrics. I have bought some of my favorite articles clothing ever (long live the book dress! and the red rain boots!). I have taken myself less seriously than ever before and laughed at myself more than ever before.
Embracing delight is an important part of my maturation into the kind of grown up that I want to be. I don’t want to be a grown-up who only knows how to be serious, work hard, and be responsible (though I do want to be all of those things). I also want to be a grown-up who seizes adventure, creativity, whimsy, laughter, fun and delight.
And so, as a 24-year-old woman who is on her way to becoming a grown-up, I’ve decided that God created the mythical idea of unicorns to remind us that we need to have fun, that we need to delight. I mean, he probably delighted in the idea of creating them, right?
I wonder if the moment that I stop smiling at unicorns may very well be the moment that I forget the beauty of simple delight. And so I persist, my unicorn book on my shelf; my unicorn quote on my wall; my unicorn song in my iTunes. Because every time I see or hear about a unicorn, I remember that this life was created by a God who desires for us to delight in it.
May you choose this delight today – delighting in the unexpected, the simple, the childish, the unproductive, the creative, the fun, the whimsical. And may we live as grown-ups who bear witness to the life-giving joy of delight.
PS: I wouldn’t complain if you joined me in delighting in unicorns, too, but no pressure there…
PPS: This blog post is not a license to give me unicorn knick-knacks for the rest of my life. I'm serious...
My age during said season? Twenty-four. Yes, twenty-four years old.
A few days ago, my supervisor made a joke about unicorns, and my entire face lit up. A month ago, one of my coworkers off-handedly guffawed at unicorns in a conference call, and I immediately messaged another woman on the team: “I LOVE unicorns!!!” (I think she thought I was crazy.) And just last week, I framed and hung on my wall my favorite unicorn quote of all time (see that amazing photo to the left...) .
Unicorns? For a 24-year-old attempting to grow up and be a professional citizen of the world? I promise I’m not crazy, delusional, or that crazy girl from the movie “Dodgeball.” In fact, I promise that (at least on most days), I am a well-adjusted, mature, grown-up who has a professional work bag, uses a food processor, and drops phrases like “differentiated leadership,” “vision alignment,” and “group dynamics” like they are my first language.
So why the unicorn fetish, you may ask?
Because unicorns remind me to simply delight.
My basic tendencies in life are to word hard, be productive, to accomplish things, to achieve excellence, to get things done, to make a genuine impact. And with that bulky list of “work, produce, accomplish, achieve, and get it done,” it’s no wonder that delighting in life is usually not my first mode of operation.
Enter unicorns.
Unicorns, in all their ridiculous childishness, remind me to find joy in the whimsical. To belly laugh hard. To light up at the childish, to giggle at the ridiculous, to embrace the dreamlike. To love something simply because it’s fun. For all of the logic, ambition, leadership, drive, and accomplishment that my life typically reflects, the unicorn is a delightful breath of air – an unanticipated sparkle of whimsy in an otherwise orderly life.
The past year has been the most delightful year of my entire life. Not by any means the easiest year – it’s been accompanied by challenges, tears, transitions, and pain, but it has been so delightful. I have laughed myself to tears on a regular basis. I have taken risks. I have awkwardly danced and weddings and liked it. I have painted things and sewed things and rearranged things on a whim just to be creative. I have taken spontaneous road trips. I have sang loud to the wrong lyrics. I have bought some of my favorite articles clothing ever (long live the book dress! and the red rain boots!). I have taken myself less seriously than ever before and laughed at myself more than ever before.
Embracing delight is an important part of my maturation into the kind of grown up that I want to be. I don’t want to be a grown-up who only knows how to be serious, work hard, and be responsible (though I do want to be all of those things). I also want to be a grown-up who seizes adventure, creativity, whimsy, laughter, fun and delight.
And so, as a 24-year-old woman who is on her way to becoming a grown-up, I’ve decided that God created the mythical idea of unicorns to remind us that we need to have fun, that we need to delight. I mean, he probably delighted in the idea of creating them, right?
I wonder if the moment that I stop smiling at unicorns may very well be the moment that I forget the beauty of simple delight. And so I persist, my unicorn book on my shelf; my unicorn quote on my wall; my unicorn song in my iTunes. Because every time I see or hear about a unicorn, I remember that this life was created by a God who desires for us to delight in it.
May you choose this delight today – delighting in the unexpected, the simple, the childish, the unproductive, the creative, the fun, the whimsical. And may we live as grown-ups who bear witness to the life-giving joy of delight.
PS: I wouldn’t complain if you joined me in delighting in unicorns, too, but no pressure there…
PPS: This blog post is not a license to give me unicorn knick-knacks for the rest of my life. I'm serious...