Christopher Robin's Misadventures in Growing Up

I’ve gone on record in at least one previous blog post about what it means to grow up healthily and unhealthily. Our family watched Christopher Robin recently and I had some additional insights about adulting that I am eager to get out. 

If you haven’t seen this movie, go check it out on Disney Plus. It’s heartwarming, heartbreaking and overall wholesome. It’s one of the movies I could watch on repeat, especially as a dad. 

Between having the childhood drilled out of him in boarding school and having some measure of PTSD from fighting in World War II, Christopher Robin isn’t the same person that you remember from the Pooh Bear cartoons. He even admits to Winnie the Pooh in his frustration: “I’m not how you remember me.”

Adulthood is a complicated time of life. In many ways, it’s just the daily grind and living in survival mode (that’s me lately). In the midst of all of this, Christopher Robin ends up putting neglect and adult expectations on his daughter. Probably the same way that his parents did to him. 

Everything in his life is so practical and serious. It’s no wonder that Pooh’s friends didn’t recognize him until he started playing. There’s something to be said for laughing and being silly. I know I am way too serious at times. My three-year-old has such a vivid imagination, always involved in imaginative play. As an adult, I wish I could find more joy in that on my own. But I can start with finding more joy in the simple things, like a red balloon. Or my favorite pen at work.

Grown-ups are so good at complicating life, but what happens when we slow down and get back to the basics? I’ll admit I’ve even tried to do that with this blog. As we expand to include the podcast, I wonder how I can simplify my work, so that it stays more of a hobby. I enjoy communing here as geeks and Christians, but I don’t want to let it pull me away from my family. 

So here’s to growing up the right way. If there is such a thing. Or I can just be like Winnie the Pooh and do nothing. After all, “doing nothing often leads to the very best of something.”