It's you I like.

I had a dream last night that I was on the phone with the late Mr. Rogers. I had gone back in time to warn him that he was about to die, but also to let him know that his message would live on long after he had gone. The whole thing was very Inception meets Back to the Future meets, well, Mr Rogers.

Mr. Rogers used look at us through the television set and tell us that we were each unique and special- that there was no one in the world like each of us. You can imagine how important (and easy) it was for me to hear this message at a time when my main daily priorities were:

A. Deciding which household item to turn into a musical instrument.
B. Making sure I made it to the bathroom in time.
C. Creating interesting plots to assign to the lives of my imaginary friends.

It still seems so sudden to have gone from that point to now - waking up in my own bed, in my own home, and realizing that I am completely responsible for the direction and substance of my life. That a bill comes in the mail for everything I used to take for granted - the garbage, the faucets, the light switch. I have commitments, dramas, important decisions.

But I don't feel that I've lost anything. We don't lose imagination, curiosity, or energy simply by growing up. Studies actually show the opposite: that both our minds and bodies actually get stronger as we get up into our adult years - more resilient -more capable.

So why do grown-ups often act as though we've lost everything that was magical in our lives, when in fact, the only thing that's changed is that we now know more about how the magic works? As adults, we've gone from being the kids in the audience at the magic show, to being the one thing that we always wanted to be: the magicians. We each get to choose our own medium for creating the magic, and we each get to create it on our own terms. It's good to be a grown up.

The challenge now is to remember. Through all the setbacks, and the roadblocks, and the temptations to conform and give up our magic. Our ideas, our struggles, and the process of overcoming them; these the very things that prove how unique and incredible we actually are. And what a blessing to realize that.

Mr. Rogers himself was unique because he allowed all of us - old and young - to see the world as a place of wonder. He was an adult, with burdens, responsibilities, and challenges of his own. But for an hour a day, he was able to distill a lot of the things that make life wonderful - love, imagination, our own individuality -and remind us of them. I'd like to believe that, in our own way, that's what each of us is striving to do. It's now up to us to remind each other.