To be a kid at heart

What does it mean to be a kid at heart?

People often say, “you’re such a kid at heart,” as if it’s something lighthearted or naïve. But I’ve come to believe it’s something much rarer, and much harder to hold onto. For me, being a kid at heart has nothing to do with immaturity—it’s about keeping the capacity to wonder, even after the world has tried its best to take it from you.

I suppose I’ve always had that stubborn streak. I still believe love exists—not the easy, romantic kind, but the enduring kind that threads itself through grief, failure, and distance. To believe in love, after everything, is to admit that hope is stronger than reason. It’s not a childish delusion. It’s an act of rebellion.

Maybe that’s what it means, truly, to be a kid at heart. When we’re children, we believe everything is alive: trees, rivers, stars. We trust that stories have power, that good can prevail, that every heartbreak has a purpose. Then life happens—loss, betrayal, disappointment—and the edges of that belief start to wear down. The trick isn’t to pretend we’re unscarred; it’s to protect the spark that remains underneath.

I think of the Irish landscape that’s shaped me lately—the hills and homes of Donegal, the cold mornings on the boat, the quiet evenings spent writing. They remind me that awe isn’t a luxury; it’s a survival skill. The kid at heart still sees meaning in small things: a sunrise after stormlight, a song sung by strangers in a pub, the way one word, rightly placed, can still break your heart open.

And there’s love in that too. Not the kind that promises to fix you, but the kind that simply says, “You’re here. You matter. Keep going.” The kid in me still believes that people are capable of that kind of love—that we can choose tenderness even when we’re tired, that we can forgive, that we can start again.

To be a kid at heart, then, is not to avoid growing up. It’s to grow up without surrendering the imagination, the curiosity, the hunger to see what could still be good. It’s to meet the world with open hands instead of closed fists.

Some days I fail at it. Some days the weight of the world feels heavier than any wonder could balance. But then something small—music, laughter, a story that hits too close—pulls me back. And I remember that this is the work of being alive: to love, to hope, to keep believing, even when we know better.

That, I think, is what it means to be a kid at heart. To keep saying yes—to love, to beauty, to possibility—when the wiser thing would be to turn away.