I loved being outside as a kid — why don't I ever go now?

A neighbor once asked Nasreddin why he no longer swam in the river below his house, the one he loved as a boy. 'I am waiting,' said Nasreddin, 'for someone to invite me.' The neighbor laughed. 'The river never invited you before.' 'Exactly,' said Nasreddin. 'And now I have grown too important to walk in without one.' The love for fields and streams doesn't disappear. What disappears is the freedom to just go, without asking anyone's permission or picking a date. Adult life adds requirements: a schedule, an occasion, gear, a group chat that agrees on Saturday. With other people involved, the requirements multiply — now everyone has to agree at once, so nobody agrees at all. The practice doesn't need to come back as a big event. It left quietly, in small moments, and it can return the same way — small, unplanned, and shared.